Bomb proof tranny

cgabe · December 16, 2003

Hello

I've noticed that there are a lot of you guys that have tranny problems.

I am the owner of a 96 Dodge Ram 1 ton dually 4x4 that I use for work. It even has the turbo diesel motor in it. These trucks are notorious for having bad trannys. But not mine. I sit at the light with one foot on the brake and floor the gas and all four tires in the rear light up. The truck has 159,000 miles and I've been driving this truck since it had only 200 miles. And believe me when I tell you this I've towed 40' mobile homes with it.

Now here's the secret:

every 25,000 miles I had a tranny flush done at the dealer. Read this right! A tranny FLUSH. Not just a fluid and filter change ...A FLUSH.

A flush means a hjgh pressure device is used to blow out ALL the old fluid that won't drain by itself, like the fluid from the torque converter and the radiator.

I trully believe that when a car maker builds a car they build it is such way that nor the tranny nor the motor (assuming the right maintainence was performed) will outlast the other. It makes no sence to me when a motor runs for 300k mi and by then you went through 3 trannies. What do you guys think?

Import Hater · December 16, 2003

Ask any tech, and they'll tell you that heat is what wears out a transmission quickly. And power braking like you just described is supposed to kill them pretty quick too, but yours is still kicking so you're lucky there.

Add a big transmission fluid cooler and you'll be ahead of most in the game.

Rob

SilveradoWV · December 16, 2003

Alot of transmissions are out before the first scheduled maintenance task. My uncle has a 94 Dodge Cummins with an Auto and it is weak, he has to baby it and does take it back all the time to the dealer to have it serviced, adjusted etc.... I think dodge has a new tranny now though, dont know if its any better or not.

cgabe · December 17, 2003

Rob

You are right about the heat destroying the trannies , but from my personal experience , flushing the tranny when I did kept the viscosity of the fluid within its limits and that in itself kept the tranny cooler than average.

As far as power braking, I bon't do that on everyday bases. I discovered my tuck can do that by mistake when I tried driving it up on ramps and the tires wouldn't grab.

Anyways , the operation manual says to change the fluid every 15k miles.

So I dont know, go figure. Could have I extended the life of my tranny even more?

MCourson · December 17, 2003

When we had our 89 Shelby Dakota V8 it had a tranny flush at 20,000. Tranny locked up at 30. I'm sure glad you are having good luck with yours though.

k1500chevy97 · December 17, 2003

we had a 97 cummins 2500 auto that spit its guts out at about 38k we had a full flush done at 20k and we were about a month away from the next flush when this happened .

After the tranny was rebuilt we went down and traded it in on a 99 f250 powerstroke.

americanmuscleman · December 21, 2003

I fully believe flushing the transmission regularly keeps auto trannys alive. I have had my tranny faithfully flushed every 20k since it was new. I have 122k on it, and tow boats and trailers all the time with it, and my tranny shifts like it was new. I changed the filter at 60k and again at 100k and probably will again at 140k.

My other 95' Tahoe I put 95k on and had the same maintenance schedule. No problems.

My camaro (which has the same 4L60E) has around 400hp, and I drive it hard. The tranny shifts perfectly all the time. I run Mobil 1 synthetic in it, and watch the tranny heat with a temperature gauge. Before I installed a 24,000 GVW tranny cooler in it, my tranny temps would regularly shoot over 220*. After adding the bigger tranny cooler, I keep the tranny temps under 180* except on the hottest summer days where it might reach 200*.

I think controlling the heat, and flushing it regularly are the key factors in making a tranny last, but also not abusing helps.

Just my 2 cents.

MCourson · December 21, 2003

My 94 gets flushed ~every 30k, gets thrashed as much as a 305 can thrash , and used to tow 4,000lbs. 176,800 miles, 0 problems.

pacodiablo · December 30, 2003

Maintinence usually does work. Our '86 Ranger was a low mileage truck, but fairly old and it was worked hard. The transmission shifted perfectly at 80K miles when it was sold. The truck was always maintained. Our Contour has an auto...65K miles and it shifts fine. It is also well cared for.

We did have the transmission die in a Ford Taurus...at around 9 PM on I-40 . It was also well cared for, but the transmission just wasn't a great one. The car had another transmission failure 2K miles later because the shop we took it to installed a transmission they knew was bad . The car was sold after that to a local Ford dealer, which sold it to a local junkyard which put a transmission in it and put the car back on the road (I have seen it around town).

The Blazer belonging to my cousin that I used to drive looked like hell at 100K miles, but the transmission shifted just fine. He maintained it perfectly.

superbee · January 3, 2004

A BIG cooler and an Inline Filter are always installed on all of my trucks soon after I get them. The Dodges have a check valve in the cooler line (inlet to radiator about a foot back toward trans), it's about the size of a bullet. The filter should be installed UPSTREAM of the check valve, this valve gets plugged up and ends up starving the trans.

SBEE

sportside · January 4, 2004

Hmm maybe i ought to pull my mothballed 89 1/2 ton chevy out of the garage and service the tranny(original). I have had the truck since it had 38,000 miles on i bought it in 91. I have changed the fluid and filter on the trans maybe 4 times the entire time i have had it. It now has 230,000 miles on it, it has no external cooler on it and still barks the tires when it shifts into second gear ( line pressure raised a little with the tv cable). I only wish my 01 5.3 shifted more like my "old truck".

superbee · January 4, 2004

There is another thing to watch out for. If your trans has not been serviced properly and it has high miles, do not change the fluid, usually this will quickly cause failure. The same is true if it shifts badly or won't go into OD. The junk built up inside will keep it together, hard to believe but true.

SBEE

YZRider · January 8, 2004

Transmission flushing is a lot better than just a regular tranny service, where they drop the pan, change the filter and refill it. The pan and filter method usually gets 5 or 6 litres of the old fluid out. The flush machine has a coule of pumps, one to push new fluid in and one to pull old fluid out. You only have to see the differnce in colour of the old and new fluids to see how good of a job it does. The flush machine even has a flow meter to see if the filter is causing any restriction and should be replaced. We use a chemical flush first to clean out any gum/varnish etc. If the only thing holding your tranny together is gum/varnish it's probably better to find out in the shop, not when it dislodges driving down the road. I have personally seen several cases where a transmission has been acting up, has been flushed and has had the problem go away. I have only seen a couple where the flushing did not help. Of course all the tranny shops will disagree with this, I had one tranny shop tell me that they didn't believe it did anything. I heard a joke once (all automatics must come out)

willfxp · February 9, 2004

How much are those flushes? Are they available outside of a dealer?

What about just replacing the fluids twice? Replace it once, run the engine for a bit (maybe for a few hundred miles) then flush the fluid out again? To get all the old fluids?

I need to do one of these soon...

-w