Change that tranny fluid . . . or else.

If your tranny maintenance has been neglected here is good food for thought.
http://www.amsoil.com/lit/filter_man_council01.pdf

I wish everyone was willing to pay the extra $100 or so for the filter and labor to change it. We probably change filters on half of the cars that we service transmissions on. I don't think that is a bad thing though. If you change trans fluid every 30-40,000 miles I would do the filter every other time.

Sounds like it runs a close second to not changing engine oil & filter regular and you get a build up of sludge, grit and slime. Then you decide to go full synthetic and it has a lot better detergent additive package in it so loosens the build up crud and stops up the oil filter. Procedure for making the switch regular dino oil to full syn oil and if it isn't done in the correct manner it can cause big problems. From what the man said about tranny fluid, ditto engine oil. Ho Hum, . . . BUT ! If people would simply follow the recommended service schedule what a wondeful less expensive world it would be. Like the man said, . . You can pay me now or pay me later. I always like to do it like this, . . You can pay me a little now or a lot later.

Okey Dokey then, enjoyed the gab fest and ya'll have a nice, safe week end.

Well, I let my '97 run 97k miles from new until I touched the tranny fluid. Against everyone's advice, I dropped the pan, overfilled, and pumped out all the old fluid. Also changed the filter. 400 miles later my Check Engine Light was ON complaining about "Excessive Torque Converter Clutch Slippage Detected" (can't remember the exact code ... 1744???). The tranny was "soft", but driveable, so I continued driving the car, clearing the code, and gathering data for several months. Finally, I got around to flushing the crud out of my cooling system. I used the recall "pH Cleaner" to do this. Once this was completed, the CE light went out, the code went away, and I haven't seen it since (50k miles).

My conclusion: The cooling system was the bigger problem. With the coolant very brown and muddy, it wasn't cooling the tranny fluid sufficiently and the result was black tranny fluid. When I transfused the system with the new fluid, for whatever reason, it was more sensitive to heat buildup inside the tranny. It took fresh coolant to correct the problem - without any large tranny rebuild costs...

For Colt Hero: WHOOOAA! Quite a testimony for the toughness and durability of your 97 tranny. I believe every word and IMO the cooling system is one of the most important components of an engine but as far as maintenance it is the most neglected. I guess I'm fortunate because my step Dad had a radiator shop and that's back when radiators were made of metal instead of plastic composite tanks, like mid 1940's. Many a time he said if people took as good care of the cooling system as they did changing oil vehicles would run a lot longer. Your analogy of the reason your tranny fluid discolored so badly is probably right on target.

Some new vehicles come with anti-freeze that is supposedly maintenance free for 5 years or 100,000 miles and I think that is absoultely great. However, I don't believe the relatively low cost of a gallon of anti freeze is worth the risk of leaving it in for 5 years and for my money I'll flush the cooling system and put in new anti-freeze every three years, and it will be the Green stuff. :iceslolan

I never would believe this if I hadn't seen it. We finished Bible study one evening and a nice old Dude was going to check his oil, had a great big old Chevy station wagon with the hog engine and every bell and whistle you can imagine. 90K miles on that big boy and same set of Michelins that came on it and it was 'prolly about a 1990. He pulled the dip stick out and the oil was thick as cold molasses and black as coal tar. I asked when was the last time he changed oil, he said I never change oil but I change the filter every 10K miles. I said WHAT? You got'ta be kidding me! He said nope, changing oil is a waste of money. Said their previous station wagon went 175K miles and never changed oil. I asked what kind of oil he used and he said whatever is on sale. I asked if he ever changed tranny fluid and he said nope. We pulled the tranny dip stick and wiped it on a paper towel and it was dark brown.

Here's the punch line: We're near Hilton Head, SC and he drove it back and forth to Myrtle Beach about once a month to visit their kin folks. So, I dun'no, . . . you tell me. :dunno: Thanks ever so much for sharing your experience and once again the old saying, "we live and we learn" bears witness.