I'm calling around to different shops getting quotes on changing my tranny fluid. Some are saying 60 and one said 120. Do I really need to have it flushed or could I just use the technique in the Chilton's manual and drain the pan and go from there? Fluid is old and is no longer red. More of a brown. Doesn't smell burned and I get some bubbles on the dipstick.

Thanks

 

you can do it yourself for no more than $20. basically all you do is just drop the trans pan, most people dont like doing it theirselves cause its a VERY messy job.

Let everything drain out real nice, clean any junk thats resting in the pan out. A good idea is to put a big magnet in the pan if it dosnt have one in there already.

Scrape the old gasket off the pan, put the new one on, and reinstall. fill the trans up with fluid, take it for a little test drive and check the fluid level and you're all set.

all you have to do is just pull the old filter out, make sure the bushing or o-ring comes out too, and install the new bushing/o-ring and filter.

Some shops off the whole trans flush deal. I'm not a huge fan of it myself, every auto trans i've owned i just changed myself and didnt bother doing any flushing and i've yet to have one wear out on me.

 

Thanks for the reply. I've actually heard that flushing an older tranny wasn't a great idea and doing it the way you described was better. Seems to be lots of debates about this. Looks like the garage floor will get messy tonight.

 

Just as a tip, I lined my garage floor under my car with a bunch of collapsed cardboard boxes so I didn't get tranny-spooge all over the place.