Do you flush your transmission? (op- trooper)

[Incusus]

I know this has been beaten to death in other forums, some consider and power flush for the transmission to be the best thing since sliced bread, others consider it the mark of the devil. I'd like toe ExPo take of it, particularly as it related to the Isuzu Trooper tranny.

on the good side:
1- It flushes *all* the fluid, as opposed to *most* of the fluid in a pan drop
2- It helps get those lil' chunky bits of varnish off the valves & galleries in the trans.

On the bad-
1-Those lil' chunky bits can clog small ports and galleries causing a massive failure if your gunked up enough.
2- its more expensive than just dropping the pan

My personal take is if you have a *brand new car* and start with the flushes every 30k miles, you wont build up enough solid bits to worry about, but if you have a vehicle you picked up with over 100k miles and dont know the maintenance history of (like me), its questionable.

Do YOU do it? Why? How often? Is there a way to clean out an older tranny enough where its safe to do one?


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[datrupr]

In having a bit of history in the transmission business, it was always our reccomendation to flush every other time. Alternate the services every 24K. Fluid and filter change, then a full flush. I followed this philosophy with my Trooper since I got it with about 60K on it. The trans did die on me at 150K. A flush is not really necessary every time, and it can even be a bad thing if your trans is on its last leg with lots of friction material in the pan and on the magnet. These bits get lodged in the valve body and do not effect the shift/driveability, but if you flush it, those bits get dislodged and will cause a massive failure. Did any of what I just said make any sense?

 

[Zaphod]

Risking a mild hijack, I understand that the same risks apply to flushing the engine.

I am keenly interested in all this flush business because I can guarantee that my Trooper has NOT received a transmission flush in close to 70K miles, and because the last engine flush I did had ZERO success in helping the oil-burning issue.

 

[Incusus]

Thanks for the feedback, I've been away so sorry to start a thread then neglect it.

I'm leaning towards not having mine flushed as I dont know its past, and the darn trannys on these are sensative. I think I'll stick with my original plan of gradual fluid changes, eventually dropping the pan and giving it a good cleaning and complete fluid/filter change.

 

[jl8088]

i bought my trooper with 85K and didn't do the "power flush" for fear of the above mentioned problems & not knowing its service history. Instead i decided to drop the pan and flush out all the fluid i could. I will continue with this every 15K based on trail usage. No problems to date.

I have had to clean my range indicator because my gear indicator was jumping from "D" to "3" to "2" to "D". It made a considerable difference in the shifting.