Should I have the transmission fluid replaced?

Question

Ive heard differing opinions, either yes change it it improves the life of your car, or dont change it it actually speeds up the decline of your transmission. I hav a 97 chevrolet cavalier, and as far as I know its never been changed. The fluid is reddish but seems to be dirty there is some muddy consistency to some of it. What should I do?

Answer 1

yes and no..., many times if the tranny isn't serviced regularly, and then you do, like now, problems will develop because in changing the fluid, you don't get all of the impurities out..., then when you put new fluid in, all hell can break loose and your tranny will start sllipping.

Answer 2

Changing fluids is what prolongs the life of moving parts. Your owners manual will tell you the minimum amount of service to do for your car based on "normal" driving conditions.

Cars that are driven hard or for short distances or city driving will require more frequent service and here's why:

All of the recommended services are based on estimated operating hours for "X" number of hours not "X" number of miles. A car that is driven exclusively in the city might take many years to log or accumulate 3,000 miles on the odometer. This would mean the engine ran far too many hours past an engine that drove 3,000 miles on the highway in one or two months.

While you could log 3,000 miles in 50 hours at 60 MPH it might take several hundred hours of actual running time for a car in the city to log the same number of miles since you are covering short distances for short periods of time and many of the engine running hours are at idle when you are stopped for a light or stop sign. Similarly, the transmission is always shifting up and down in the city environment and is primarlily in the over-drive gear (lower RPM's) on the highway.

The best service intervals when not keeping track of mileage is time. Every two years is a good service interval for an automatic transmission as well as a manual trasmission unless you only drive a couple thousand miles a year and most of the mileage is Interstate at Interstate speeds, not in constant traffic jams.

Good Luck!

P.S. It's never too late to change the transmission fluid. I have and had vehicles with the original transmissions in them for over twenty years and even though they might be a bit loose after all of these years, they still get their fluid serviced every two years give or take a year.

Answer 3

YES! DO NOT get a flush and fill though. Flushing the transmission this late in the game with no previous transmission service will most likely drastically reduce its life. What you will want the shop to do is drop the pan, drain the fluid, replace the filter and refill it with a synthetic ATF+3 or better. This is if you have an automatic. I do not know what they do for a manual.

Answer 4

The Engineers at GM made it so that it does require a trans flush (and flush the converter too) at ~100,000 miles.

Like your motor oil, the transmission fluid needs to be changed as well because it breaks down over time due to friction, time and temperature... (just not at the same interval because it doesn't see fuel and combustion by-products).

I would change the filter, fluid, drain the converter and clean the particle magnet on the bottom of your tranny pan.

If you're doing this yourself, you can probably get away with not doing the converter... just be careful when re-inserting the bolts so as not to cross thread them as they are self-tapping threads...

Answer 5

change the fluid asap. new transmission fluid will add life to your tranmission not taking it away its like drive your car and never change the oil would you do it????

Answer 6

change the fluid .make sure you use a good flush to clean it also drain your converter too.

Answer 7

smell it....if it smells burnt....change it.....also check with the dealer for a scheduled maintenance service interval.....yes regular maintenance will prevent this mess......