hi all, post #1 for me :)
after reading these forums for a while i was thinking about getting the auto transmission flush done on my 03 tl, gear changes are not bad but the fluids brown, its got 135k on it the last 20k that ive owned it its been generally hard city driving. i got 2 dealer quotes for $280 and $300 which seems a bit more than some of the prices getting thrown about here and ive seen a couple of posts suggesting the box can be damaged from gunk that gets dislodged if its really dirty.
is it preventative maintenence or do i wait until it starts misbehaving?
any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
thank you,
ant

I was lazy and bought the Fluid ($50 for 5 litres, for a full flush you'll need to buy 10 litres) and paid my mechanic $50 to do it. So $300 is charging a bit much. If you've got the time you may as well do it yourself, there's a guide floating on the forum somewhere on how to do it, pretty straight forward..

At 135K I wouldn't think there would be that much gunk especially if the car has been serviced properly in the past.

It seems these gearboxes prefer preventative maintenance and its cheaper than getting it repaired.

PS make sure you only use Mitsu fluid whether you do it yourself or get it done.

$280/$300 seems a little on the high side. I think I paid $200 from a dealer to get mine done. When I first got it done, it wasn't even overdue, but the fluid was so icky they had to flush it a number of times to get it clean. I would definitely recommend doing, especially if you know the fluid's gone brown. Prevention is definitely better than cure, considering how unreliable these gear boxes can be.

Is this a mad idea or not.
Whilst thinking about putting a tranny oil cooler into a TJ and checking out the inflow/outflow lines to the radiator I was wondering if you could do a transmission flush by using a temporary tube to redirect the outflow line from the radiator into a waste container underneath the car and then connect a second tube to extend the line taking oil into the tranny to draw from a fresh bottle of transmission oil. Start the engine and let the oil pump in the tranny push the old oil out and at the same time draw in the new (stopping the engine of course before the bottle is empty). Not sure what sort of pressure the oil pump works at and if I would have enough time before the new bottle is drained.

That should work considering the way you're supposed to do it is to disconnect the outflow line and top it up from the dip stick. I guess as long as it sucks the fluid from the bottle then there's no problem.
I think the manual says to not run it for more than 1 minute at a time but that's without sucking fluid up.

Is this a mad idea or not.
Whilst thinking about putting a tranny oil cooler into a TJ and checking out the inflow/outflow lines to the radiator I was wondering if you could do a transmission flush by using a temporary tube to redirect the outflow line from the radiator into a waste container underneath the car and then connect a second tube to extend the line taking oil into the tranny to draw from a fresh bottle of transmission oil. Start the engine and let the oil pump in the tranny push the old oil out and at the same time draw in the new (stopping the engine of course before the bottle is empty). Not sure what sort of pressure the oil pump works at and if I would have enough time before the new bottle is drained.

This is the way it's done at automatic transmission places I'm pretty sure. It's the same way the powerflush machines work.