tranny question....

I'm not sure if I've asked this before so bear with me if you recall me asking. My transmission has 95,000 miles on it. To my knowledge it has never been flushed and/or the filter changed. The only possible time this would have been done would have been at 15K when my grandfather bought it - so we're still talking 80K here. I know shops will not touch the tranny if it goes over 100K, but the question is this. Am I better off not doing it since it's so close, or should I have the filter and fluid changed now and hope that it continues to last? I put some trans-x in shortly after I got it (about 6K ago) and other than what I've heard is normal - not so smooth downshifting, it seems to be working quite well. Any suggestions?

-Dan

90' Black/Tan Coupe

This is a big topic of controversy over in rec.autos.tech too.

This 440T4 transmission was not the best GM ever deployed in the first place.

On some models you were lucky to get 100,000 miles out of them. My

Reatta has 145,000 and is doing fine, BUT I don't know if the original owner

had to rebuild or not.

Bottom line...if you cant change the fluid and filter, you don't have much transmission left anyway. I wouldn't hit the road with a tranny held together

with sludge.

The shops don't want to do it because, with that mileage and lack of maintenance, some customers would blame anything that happened on the

service.

It's a coin toss. Yes, there could be negative consequences. There will be

negative consequences anyway, eventually.

I would have someone that knows what they are doing do a complete fluid flush ( there are a dozen names for it.

They pull the lines off the Radiator and flush all the fluid including the torque coverter.

Then have them pull the pan and replace the filter. Check the magnet for metal pieces. If there is no magnet, the fluid may have been changed and the Mechanic kept the magnet for his kids to play with. The magnet goes in a little dipple in the pan.

Hydraulic things like clean fluid and will last a long time.