Trans Oil Change - full exchange or drain and fill

[hoehne]

I have a 93 Camry V6 with 161000 miles and have not had the transmission oil changed in quite a while, at least 40k miles. Lately, the car has been quite sluggish when first started and hesitates while accelerating as mentioned in other threads. I attribute this to sticking solenoids and other valves when the fluid is not hot and therefore viscous and not free flowing. I also believe the fluid has lost its properties and has quite a bit of crud in it.

My question is, is it safe to do a full transmission oil flush/exchange or better to do a drain and fill? I have heard bad stories of people doing flushes on there cars just to have the transmission fail shortly there after. Toyota said if this were a domestic, they would not do a flush, but since it is a Toyota, a flush would be ok. But then again, they do not warranty their work if the transmission were to fail after the fluid change and I don't want to pick up the tab for that.

Any suggestions of what to do about a transmission oil change or what else might be leading to hesitation during acceleration during the first few miles of driving a cold car would be very helpful.

[bertmaster2000]

Originally Posted by hoehne

My question is, is it safe to do a full transmission oil flush/exchange or better to do a drain and fill?

Any suggestions of what to do about a transmission oil change or what else might be leading to hesitation during acceleration during the first few miles of driving a cold car would be very helpful.

i drained and refilled my 1988 (161,000 miles) 2k miles ago and have not had a single problem/malfunction. i added atc+ conditioner during the refill process.