Automatic Transmission Fluid Change

Somehow I just dont feel comfortable with Ford telling you that “It’s fixed”. I discovered your rant on the other site a few days ago. I get great satisfaction playing dumb with some of these places then hitting them when they least expect it and watching them double back and trip all over themselves. I did that to one of our local AAMCO shops a few months back. I should say, I know the owner, his son is running the place now. A current customer of mine had a friend of his come to me about a Dodge truck falling in and out of lockup. AAMCO charged him $75 for a diagnostic then told him he was losing O/D because his O/D band was fried and he would be looking at $2500 for a rebuild. First of all this transmission has 2 bands, a L/R band and an intermediate band (2nd gear band). There are no bands in this transmission controlling O/D. I decided to go with him to pick up his truck and to listen to them explain this one. Low and behold, they continued to feed him so much BS it startd to smell like a farm in there. I asked them a few questions like what would make the overdrive band go out and he gave me some lame excuse. I asked him if he knew what kind of transmission we were talking about and I think he started to catch on that he was being set up. He was stuttering and sweating. I looked at him and said I think you need to give him his $75 bucks back which he did. He then said the truck is outside then he disappeared. Wedrove back to my shop and I checked it out. The problem ended up being a trans temp sensor located in the trans cooler line. It was leaking ATF out the electrical connector. Scanner confirmed it was bad. AAMCO was trying to tell him he had an overdrive problem when it was a lockup problem. (Easy to distinguish for a pro) PLUS that transmission normally doesnt cost $2500 to rebuild (Especially by AAMCO’s standards) They were getting ready to make a ton of money off of him.

transman

This was posted to another AT fluid change question. Please comment on the interval and reasoning behind the flush given.

That would have been pretty funny to watch, Transman! The only amusing part of these things is watching some of those guys sweat bullets.
The sad part is that most people are not mechanically inclined so a little bit of technical nonsense babble simply overwhelms them.
This applies to about every repair that can be made on a car.

My son called this evening and he got his vehicle back this afternoon. He says that it’s apparently (key word, apparently) shifting fine. He was a bit unsure about the repair order but it stated they replaced a solenoid (unspecified, but 225 bucks), dropped the pan (risking a pan leak I guess), and did an R & R of the valve body along with replacing the filter. Total bill was about 800+ dollars but they allegedly covered all of this including the alleged 100 dollar deductible on the extended warranty.

Stinks a bit to me. I have a feeling this vehicle had a felt type filter in it rather than a steel screen. The trans fluid flush may have stirred up any gunk in the pan which then lodged in the filter and possibly restricted the fluid flow since the problems started within about 2 miles after the flush. What do you think?

I’m still a bit antsy over this because if a low miles (60k) gently driven vehicle had enough sludge in the pan to cause this problem then that material had to come from somewhere. Most likely friction material.

Since the service manager had made the comment to me that I probably knew full well that service writers are not mechanics I guess I should have come back with, “Well, who’s the person hiring them?” :slight_smile:

Service that transmission with a pan drop and fluid filter change every 25-30k miles regardless of what the owners manual says.

That is the only advice that IMO should universally followed that is not listed in the owner’s manual.

Of the 200+ fleet vehicles we service, which get the trans pan dropped and filter changed, the cooler flushed out and re-filled with the CORRECT fluid annually (15,000 to 60,000 miles) I recall only 2 transmission failures in recent years. Both had many, many miles(250,000+). FWIW