I just changed tranny fluid in my tranmission tonight. The old oil itself was pretty dark. But when I took the drain plug out, there was a little more than 1/8th inch of gunk stuck to the magnet. Enough to scrape off with your finger and have a good sized gob of it. The part I didn't like is that I could feel metal shavings in there. I've only had the car for about 1000 miles, it has 85,000 total on it. By the looks of it this may have been the first fluid change for the tranny. I know the previous owners didn't change it because the drain plug wasn't torqued to a billion foot lbs like the oil plug, oil filter and lug nuts. Anyway, hopefully it'll shift a little smoother tomorrow... Thanks, Joel
gunk is pretty normal, i changed mine about every 1K miles for a bit, i had a fair amount of gunk each time
Hmm, if the fluid seriously hadn't been changed in 85,000 miles, then it wouldn't be surprising to have all that gunk on there. I bet you will notice a nice difference with new fluid. Cool to see another Joel on the forums. Joel
Well, I'm a believer in NOT switching to synthetic on an old tranny. So I just got some quaker state 80W90 GL-5 rated gear oil. I just looked in the owner's manual to get the recommended grade and weight. Anyway, it doesn't shift any different after changing the oil. I need to drive someone else's manual to see how mine compares. I can shift fine, there just feels like there's a little catch when going between the gears, it takes a litte pressure to get it to the next gear. But no gear is worse than any other, no grinding, no whining, it's never popped out of gear. So I think it might be ok. Joel
