I usually do my own tranny fluid and filter change every 30k miles on my Super Duty trucks, but my 2019 doesn’t have a drain plug on the pan. I’m up to 44k miles now. Guess I need to check the owners manual for Ford recommendation on service interval. How often do y’all service auto transmissions?

Older ones or ones that see a hell of a lot of heavy towing 30000-50000 miles.

Modern daily driver that sees occasional towing use with modern synthetic fluids, 100,000.

Ooops I’m at 170k and never changed it.

I honestly feel like as soon as you touch the tranny fluids.. it’s a jinx. Filter makes sense though

Kind of leary getting done at dealer. They just flush. Last time I had wife’s previous Expedition flushed, tranny went out a week later. Never had any trans issues on the Super duty’s when I do them myself. Guess I could buy an aftermarket pan with a drain plug. But removing the stock pan and not being able to drain will be a large messy operation.

Ive never flushed any of them, just drop the pan change the filter and top off.

The much hated, feared, and dreaded 68RFE in my Cummins is at 162,797 trouble free miles and I’ve never changed the fluid.

Last time I changed the fluid was in a Chevy 2500 HD with 4L80E transmission. Changed the fluid at or close to the required interval which I believe was 60,000 miles. By 68,000 miles the transmission was getting rebuilt. The man doing it asked me when I changed the fluid, then said never ever change the fluids. Now you’ve learned an expensive lesson.

I've got almost 100,000 on my 2015 F-350. Daily driver and occasional heavy towing. I haven't changed the transmission fluid yet, but I'm told that the first change needs to happen at 100k. I'm a little nervous about doing it because of all of the horror stories that I've heard over the years. My fluid is just starting to get dark. Not sure what I wanna do yet...

I think on the Fords the newer trucks are scheduled at over 150,000 miles if my memory is right.


On the work trucks we change to fluid every 50,000 miles on the Aisins, fluid and filters are cheap compared to a $12,000 transmission so I don’t take a chance. On our daily drivers I change them around 100,000 miles of the 68’s


I think as long as you service them regularly you won’t have a problem, at least we haven't and after about 40 fluid changes I’d think we would have had a problem by now if that were the case. I’m convinced it’s the ones that go way over their service limits or pulling heavy loads without changing the fluids when they needed to be replaced letting the fluids break down and causing wear and metal shavings to pile up and when you swap the fluid it basically runs all the metal shavings through the tranny wiping them out.

The flushes are notorious for doing this…

I always thought that flushing removed the metal shavings and ruined the trans. If you’ve ever seen or flushed a transmission, I don’t see how any metal shavings can be left.

I’ve seen them done plenty of times, if you know how a transmission works the torque converter in particular and what the inside of one looks like you would know that their isn’t any way in herl flushings getting all the metal out. Flushing dislodges crap that doesn't need to be dislodged allowing it to be like Forest Gump and run through everything afterwards wiping out the clutch packs after you drive it a few thousand miles. Theirs a reason why transmissions go out within a few thousand miles after a flush job. Where as simply changing the fluid and replacing the filter doesn’t dislodge any deposits of crud in the little nooks and crannies which always exist.

Think of it like this, you don’t flush your motor with that handy dandy machine using high pressure to blast the inside of the motor right? It sure would be easier simple hooking up a couple of lines and suck it out verses going through the trouble of pulling the plug and swapping the filter and then having to refill it . Nope you drain the oil and change the filter and then refill it not disturbing any of of the thousands of little spots that 100% of the time hold crap in them.

I’ve been a mechanic for the better part of 30 years and seen a lot of crap in my time, I’ll continue to do normal fluid and filter changes without a single worry of it ever coming back to haunt me. Their is so much misinformation on this topic it has the average guy scared to change his tranny fluid but I can with 100% certainty say 99% of it is BS and you most definitely need to keep your transmission fluid changed in a timely manner or pay the consequences later on when it could all have been easily avoided.

A lot of the transmissions now do not come with the older red/pink atf in them. I know my ram has a bluish green fluid from the factory.

I have serviced the transmission on every singe vehicle I have ever owned except a manual cummins because I didnt keep it long enough. Out of all of the vehicles I have personally owned and every vehicle in my imediate family which I service as well, zero transmission failures. Several that towed redularly with 200,000-300,000 miles on them that still shifted as good the day we sold them as new.

I had a Ford 7.3 diesel that i drove for 15 years. I changed the fluid and filter every 30,000 miles, including draining the torque converter. Never had any problems. I think it is important to do one or the other for sure.

On my ‘03 F250 w/6.0 I handed it down to my son. He drove it during HS and through jr year of college. I didn’t have time to change the fluid myself during his sophomore year, so I sent him to the dealer to get it flushed. About a week later he calls me and says tranny is overheating. I did research on the web, found out it was a $20 plastic temp valve inside the pan. Gets clogged with debris after flushing. Got it over to a friends place with a lift the next weekend, drained the new fluid, pulled the pan and changed the $20 part. It was clogged. Replaced pan and replaced the fluid. Good to go after that.

I try not to let my trucks get old enough to need a change.

Nice

The newer stuff is more like hydraulic oil than transmission fluid and the price reflects it, the Aisin fluid is around $23 a quart and it holds roughly 13 of them.

Im a bout to service the Aisin in my dads. I have been debating what fluid to use. I will probably end up using Valvoline max life synthetic. Damn near any transmission will run on the stuff.

I changed the fluid in my ram (ZF-8 speed) a while back. The ZF 8 and 9 speed fluid it calls for sells for like 27-40 dollars a quart. The valvoline meets the specs and is $17 a gallon at walmart.

Mine works just fine on it. I have talked to a guy with over 600,000 miles on his doing a 100,000 miles service interval and his was fine.

Love the term “meets specs”

Can’t run that fluid in the Aisin, it takes a special type of fluid you can’t buy just anywhere. If it stops raining I’ll run out to the shop and take a pic of the fluid you need to get. It’s cheaper than the factory stuff but if you put that Valvoline in it you won’t be going very far,, a quick search and you will find out why

Here’s what you need for the Aisin, nobody around here carries it so you will probably have to order it, we started running it in ours last year without any issues. It has to do with how the lock up converter operates as to why normal tranny fluid won’t work, this stuff is like water as is the factory fluid.

I have read that also. That and the valvoline is what I had debated between. Ive talked to some both way who had luck and didnt with the valvoline, guess Ill play it safe and use the ATF 3309. The Valvoline does list it as being a ATF 3309 equivalent or meeting the specs for it though.

Gotcha, I’m not a fan of “Meet Specs” lol The 3309 is the exact fluid as the factory made my the same company so I wasn’t taking a chance on transmissions that cost over 10k. If you use the Valvoline let me know if it works.

I found the 3309 on sale for $4.79 a quart after some searching

Sure is a lot of Tranny talk going on in this thread.

I knew that comment would appear eventually.

Sorry couldn't help myself.