Took my 2006 Toyota Matrix with 23k on the odo to a dealer today for an ECM replacement on recall.
About 30 min after they took in to the bays the service writer comes over and tells tells me the transmission fluid looks dark and should be changed.
Me: “I just changed it about 2000 miles ago”
Him: “Did you flush it or just drain and refill?”
Me: “How do you flush a manual transmission?”
Him: … They powerflush it. And your power steering fluid is real dark too.
Me: Okay, I’ll keep an eye on those things.
I didn’t bother telling him how I drain and refill the PS reservoir once a year.
Other than that little shake down the service staff were very friendly to the customers in the waiting room.
And from what I overheard nobody (except me at $0) got out of there for less than $300.
I wonder if we have the same Toyota dealer? At least my dealer doesn’t push too hard after the first No Thank You. I guess the moral is “Knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss”.
Ed B.
Manual transmissions are darned hard to flush. Quail and Dove are a bit easier. It’s all about the wings I guess. I would worry if gear oil was not dark when used. That just proves that they don’t know who they are talking to.
If you had said yes to their additional “service” I wonder if you would have needed a radiator flush too.
The reason they do it…is because they can. And I’m sure they make a LOT of money doing it too. Great isn’t it. You are an informed consumer. Unfortunately there are far too many who are not. If the majority of people were more knowledgeable then the dealers would stop this.
I call it the SPAM syndrome. E-Mail SPAM is only around because it’s a 3-5 BILLION DOLLAR a year business. If people would STOP responding to the spammers then the spammers will stop spamming. But as long as there are gullible people out there…spammers live on making BILLIONS.
And it hurts like hell when you try to kick a manual transmission up out of the grass.