02 durango, 4.7L transmission filter question

[jstutz]

A friend of my wife and I had a check engine light come on and the dealer said she needed to change the trans filter and fluid. Well to save her some money, i did it tonight. Earlier i ran to the parts store and got the trans kit and 5 qts of ATF+4. Well while changing the filter i noticed another silver filter that looked like a car style transmission filter inside the pan. I tried to torque it off there and from fear of breaking something i left it aloe. Thinking maybe this was a permanent screen filter or something. So run in and check autozones website and no mention of this filter. Well i go about my business thinking okay well it must be permanent buttoned her up and poured the fluid in. Drove around checked the level ect and everything is good to go. Well that filter thing was eating at me so i looked at advance website and sure enough it lists it right there. So the question is which filter is more prone to clogging. the pan type that most have or the inline one? Does the inline one have a bypass in it? Is the car type much finer than the pan type? Im thinking after a while just having her come back over and changing that filter and fluid again because the fluid was 145000 miles old and did not look very pretty.

 

[crazyoildude]

145,000 miles on a dodge transmission that might be a worlds record...Anyway change it again like you said and maybe another time also just to get the fluid clean and hope for the best...Some say if you have that many miles on a trans you should not touch it but i disagree i have seen some really bad fluid and changed it and had no problems

 

[jstutz]

Yep, when there old like this i dont like to shock the system by doing flushes and stuff for me i have had great luck doing multiple short intervals until things are cleaned up. I have never encountered two filters in the pan before. Most of what i work on are chevys and i haven't seen one yet like this. I dont have a lot of experience on fords or dodges.

 

[jstutz]

Im thinking about doing the second change and including the canister filter here in about a week. That will be two fluid changes. Then give it until spring and do the third one. Then start 20k changes for her until it stops.

 

[Colt45ws]

The canister filters fluid coming back from the cooler. Youll notice a slot right next to the canister where fluid pours back into the pan after going through it.

 

[kelpie]

You can get the canister filter from the dealer. The trans takes 8 quarts when both filters are removed. Use ATF+4 only.

 

[VNTS]

that is the filter for the cooler circuit and is a much better filter than the pancake.

BTW the way the 545 RFE is [censored] nice transmission, very dependable.

 

[jstutz]

Thank you all for the replys, ill change the fluid and "all" the filters again and im sure we will be good to go.