Replace Trans Fluid

[la-z-boy]

I have 98 taurus, 3L, AX4N, 110K. I need to replace transmission fluid, maybe somebody can tell me how to do that.
And how much it would cost if somebody (dealer) would replace it for me?

[sfontain]

Originally Posted by la-z-boy

I have 98 taurus, 3L, AX4N, 110K. I need to replace transmission fluid, maybe somebody can tell me how to do that.
And how much it would cost if somebody (dealer) would replace it for me?

It's annoying, and this is the one preventative maintenance item that I let a dealer do. What they do is hook up a machine to the cooling lines that run from the transmission to the radiator and back. I don't know about your '98, but on my '02, which comes with a screen filter, they don't drop the pan or change the filter. They just flush the old fluid and replace it all with new. It's going to run you around $120-$130, and may come out to $140-$150 after all the taxes and fees are included. It's not cheap, but the likely result of not doing it will cost you a LOT more.

If you want to do it yourself, the approach that generally seems to be accepted here is:

Drop the pan (~19 bolts on the AX4N I believe, and this is going to be extremely messy, because fluid is going to spill out all over the place unless you loosen the pan intelligently). Change the filter. Clean out the pan and the round magnet in the pan with a solvent. Reattach pan. Refill transmission with any fluid lost when you dropped the pan through the check tube. Unhook a cooler line from the radiator and attach your own 3-ft. piece of hose to the disconnect point, and aim it into a bucket. Now run the engine, and add ATF through the check tube at the same speed that it runs out of the cooling line, OR, Run the engine until 1-2qts comes out, shut off engine, and replace the 1-2qts (this may be safter since you run less risk of running the transmission too low on ATF); continue this process until the fluid that comes out of the cooling line looks new.

Incidentally, if your transmission has never been flushed before, then at 110K, you will find a lot of people who recommend that you just don't ever flush it until the transmission dies, because there would be loads of crud in your transmission that could be dislodged and cause problems if you change the fluid now. Otherwise, definitely have this done one way or another.

[vampiro03]

I agree don't change it without talking to a transmission mechanic. like he said, when your trans has had the same fluid in it for that long, the metal shavings could be holding the trans together.

[Willyum]

Who has ever heard of crud and debris holding anything together? Liken it to if you quit flushing your toilet, but kept using it. Likely the bowl will get pretty messy, full of crud and waste. Don't flush it and clean it out because the debris is holding the bowl together? Be sure to replace the filter when you change fluid in the transmission.

[Psychopete]

Originally Posted by Willyum

Who has ever heard of crud and debris holding anything together? Liken it to if you quit flushing your toilet, but kept using it. Likely the bowl will get pretty messy, full of crud and waste. Don't flush it and clean it out because the debris is holding the bowl together? Be sure to replace the filter when you change fluid in the transmission.

Hahahahahaha!

[sfontain]

Originally Posted by Willyum

Who has ever heard of crud and debris holding anything together? Liken it to if you quit flushing your toilet, but kept using it. Likely the bowl will get pretty messy, full of crud and waste. Don't flush it and clean it out because the debris is holding the bowl together? Be sure to replace the filter when you change fluid in the transmission.

I'm not quite sure whether this was aimed at vampiro or me. But I definitely never said that metal shavings are holding a transmission together.

What I said was that crud could be dislodged. That crud could later get lodged in far more damaging places.

While I appreciate the toilet analogy, you show me a toilet with a few hundred moving parts, flush it a few hundred million times (which is a conservative estimate of how many times many parts of a 100K mile automatic transmission have revolved or changed and returned to original position) without changing any of the water in the tank, and I trust you will find some damaging buildup.

[vampiro03]

Originally Posted by Willyum

Who has ever heard of crud and debris holding anything together? Liken it to if you quit flushing your toilet, but kept using it. Likely the bowl will get pretty messy, full of crud and waste. Don't flush it and clean it out because the debris is holding the bowl together? Be sure to replace the filter when you change fluid in the transmission.

I have been told by mechanics that it "could" do more damage than good. I would not waste my time making stuff up. nobody really knows for sure. usually when you want to change your trans fluid or something there is already a problem with it, or you wouldn't think about it.

[la-z-boy]

What if my trans has 50k miles can I flush it? And how many gallons of transmission fluid '98 Taurus AX4N tarns needs?
Thanks

[sfontain]

Originally Posted by la-z-boy

What if my trans has 50k miles can I flush it? And how many gallons of transmission fluid '98 Taurus AX4N tarns needs?
Thanks

It will be listed in your owner's manual but it's somewhere around 14 quarts, or 3.5 gallons.