Transmission flush

[Ed Fenwick]

Aloha,

The shop quoted $100. to do a trans flush yesterday. That sounds to be a good price. He will flush with new fluid but not drop the pan to clean the filter!! The question is after 113K miles, do I need to check the filter or have they been clean when you guys have looked at them?

God bless Ed

 

[John Z]

If you have never changed your transmission filter within 113k miles - then you are way over due for a new filter.

 

[Mark K 2]

The oil change place told me the filter gets flushed clean when you do a transmission flush.

 

[Kinley Winters]

Having just done my own filter trans fluid change this past weekend. The filter does NOT get flushed clean when doing a flush, not physically possible. The filter is a screen type material that traps the particles and then once the flow is released the particles drop back into the fluid to either get caught by the pan magnet or trapped again once the flow starts.



In order to do a proper clean the pan needs to be dropped, filter replaced and then fluid flushed. How you flush the fluid is up to you but the filter DOES need to be replaced anything else is only half way.



Cheers

Kinley

 

[Richard L]

Kinley is correct. The flush does not clean the filter, but the transmission filter is not designed to trap and hold dirt like an engine oil filter, so very little debris remains in the filter when the engine is shut off. The debris just falls to the bottom of the pan where it is attracted to the magnet and prevented from circulating in the fluid.



If a transmission is flushed regularly, every 25k-30K miles the filter will easily last 100K miles without being changed. However if you have not flushed or changed your fluid regularly, or if you purchased the vehicle used and do not know the maintenance history, then I would recommend dropping the pan and having the transmission filter changed regardless if you have the fluid flushed or just changed. Then you can continue with regular transmission flushes.



...Rich