I'm a firm believer in the "if it's yellow, let it mellow" rule.

But seriously, my automatic is quite near end of life. I was planning to have a manual conversation done when we could afford it, around the end of March.

It's burned the fluid badly, and struggles to shift gears by itself and by manually selecting.

Would it be worth the spending $180 on flushing, or is the old fluid the only thing holding the box together?

Note, it browned the fluid in 5000km last time, it only burned it badly enough that you can smell it today, and I do 600km on a quiet week.

If you're swapping for a manual in a couple of months, I'd just pump out the old fluid and run new fluid in. OEM is as cheap or cheaper than Nulon, $40something per 5 litres. You need about 5.5 litres for a full tranny, maybe dump in 500ml of generic fluid (that meets specs). Gotta be better than the molasses you're running now. NOTE: If you think you'll change your mind re the conversion, do it properly with full flush and OEM fluid only.

From what I've been told you can also buy 1L bottles of OEM ATF

Yeah what ensoniq said is correct, last time I went to buy tranny fluid a good brand was $75 and the oem mitsubishi one which I think is actually just as good or better since its oem was $42, I bought 3 just cause im crazy like that

Oh, I know all about using the correct fluids, I did have a (well, several) first gen automatic. You know, the ones made with used hand grenades.

The question is, will changing the fluid kill an already very sick transmission? I still need the car to be able to drive the thing.

Changing the fluid wont kill it, if anything itll make it a bit better

Gav, there are 2 schools of thought. Changing the fluid could go either way for you depending what is wrong with your box. It may be the filthy fluid is what is causing the issue or flushing it all may be the start of the end. I have had similar cars here in the shop and had these things go both ways.

If you are going to flush by draining, refill, let the trans pump out of the cooler line the chances of dislodging anything too bad is remote, power flush however may cause issues.

No harm even in just draining and re filling the box in this case to save some fluid and at least get some fresh stuff in there until you can do a manual conversion.

Alright. I'll do a drop-refill-drop-refill, and check where I can hire a car trailer from near here.

What's the part number on the spin-on filter, and it's approx price?

Transmission done. It's still brown, even after using 10 litres.

Pulled a ton of shavings out of it. There were no large bits, thankfully.

The fluid was very similar to Turkish coffee, both in colour, and suspended particles.

Does drive better. It actually changes gear, and doesn't fall out of fourth on hills.

God - Magnas got a bad Rep for faulty Auto gearboxes - I think any car that drives on Turkish Coffee fluid is unbelievable, I hope real Turkish Coffee doesn't have metal shavings as well LOL!

I'm not sure why Magna's have such a specialty fluid for their gearboxes - but it seems regular fluid changes help the gearbox shifts and lifetime.