- Joined
- Aug 5, 2024
- Messages
- 16
Hey all. First post here. Gonna try to sum it up with the nitty gritty here.
I used to have a Crown Victoria, it died at about 185k miles last year due to a (second) transmission failure. The (second) transmission was a Motorcraft reman that had been installed a 114k, and started giving me issues at about 183k. 1500-2000 miles later, the trans totally lost forward gears - most likely due to the forward engagement drum developing a crack in it, a common issue with these transmissions. It would slip through 1st and 2nd before staying solid in 3rd and OD. It started to occasionally bang into gear, then one night I was driving home from work and it banged into gear one last time then wouldn't go forward anymore.
So fast forward a couple months, I essentially got a 2010 Hyundai Elantra for free back in October. It had 123k miles on it.
The girl I got it from was getting a new car because she perceived the Elantra to have a bad transmission, and was going to junk the Elantra.
I took it for a test drive and took it off her hands because it didn't seem THAT bad. It now has 134k miles on it, so I've put about 11.5k miles on it.
I got no service history on the car. The only things I know are that the timing belt got replaced 3 months before I took ownership, the paint is good, it now needs the EPS steering coupler replaced, and that the transmission acts wonky 20% of the time and the chick I got it from said that started maybe 3 months before I took it off her hands. To her knowledge the transmission has never been serviced (her mom had it for the first 100k or so, then she took it over for a year or so when her mom got a new car.)
When I first got it, it was slipping when coming out of turns or roundabouts with light-mid throttle application. Say you're merging onto the freeway from an onramp, coming off the onramp onto the freeway it will slip as you try to get up to speed with traffic UNLESS you WOT it. WOT doesn't seem to have these issues.
It was also slipping on the downshift for passing in traffic, and would bang into gear once it finally caught. After 20-30 miles of extended driving, if you got into stop and go traffic it would start to act erratic and slip - get up to speed then have to slow down then reaccelerate, on the reacceleration it would flare and buck before finally getting up to speed, which a few times has led to a P0734 being thrown and the PCM commanding it to stay locked in 3rd.
I added some Lucas stop slip and it seemed to have helped during the winter. The car was also about a pint low on trans fluid so I added some Castrol import (specced for SP-III) and got it up to level.
Now that it's 90+ here every day I'm thinking the fluid is getting baked in the pan just by the ambient temps. Nasty SP-III that probably has never been changed. The car doesn't really do a lot of the other stuff anymore, but now the TC likes to unlock and lock repeatedly if I have light throttle application. It drives me absolutely insane.
This whole time I was assuming that the trans was on borrowed time. My father, being an old school mechanic, advised me not to change the fluid and just drive it till it drops. But I'm starting to think that maybe it's just the fluid that is toast, I don't think the fluid has ever been changed. The car drives perfectly fine and normal like, 75-80% of the time. My line of thinking now is that if the trans was truly shot, it would be acting way wonkier than it does, and I don't think it would have gone almost 15k miles this way.
I'm hesitant to drop the pan and change the fluid because if the fluid is full of clutch material and that's truly keeping the trans going - I don't have the money to rebuild or replace. Not even with a junkyard unit. But at this point I really think the fluid is just....WAY old. And isn't doing it's job properly anymore, additive pack broke down, etc.
So BITOG forumers, what would you do? And just for kicks, say I change the fluid and the trans starts acting way more wonky, meaning there was a lot of clutch material in the old fluid - would it be possible to pull the drain plug and refill with the old fluid, or would it be better to just dump a bunch of Lucas into the new fluid?
I used to have a Crown Victoria, it died at about 185k miles last year due to a (second) transmission failure. The (second) transmission was a Motorcraft reman that had been installed a 114k, and started giving me issues at about 183k. 1500-2000 miles later, the trans totally lost forward gears - most likely due to the forward engagement drum developing a crack in it, a common issue with these transmissions. It would slip through 1st and 2nd before staying solid in 3rd and OD. It started to occasionally bang into gear, then one night I was driving home from work and it banged into gear one last time then wouldn't go forward anymore.
So fast forward a couple months, I essentially got a 2010 Hyundai Elantra for free back in October. It had 123k miles on it.
The girl I got it from was getting a new car because she perceived the Elantra to have a bad transmission, and was going to junk the Elantra.
I took it for a test drive and took it off her hands because it didn't seem THAT bad. It now has 134k miles on it, so I've put about 11.5k miles on it.
I got no service history on the car. The only things I know are that the timing belt got replaced 3 months before I took ownership, the paint is good, it now needs the EPS steering coupler replaced, and that the transmission acts wonky 20% of the time and the chick I got it from said that started maybe 3 months before I took it off her hands. To her knowledge the transmission has never been serviced (her mom had it for the first 100k or so, then she took it over for a year or so when her mom got a new car.)
When I first got it, it was slipping when coming out of turns or roundabouts with light-mid throttle application. Say you're merging onto the freeway from an onramp, coming off the onramp onto the freeway it will slip as you try to get up to speed with traffic UNLESS you WOT it. WOT doesn't seem to have these issues.
It was also slipping on the downshift for passing in traffic, and would bang into gear once it finally caught. After 20-30 miles of extended driving, if you got into stop and go traffic it would start to act erratic and slip - get up to speed then have to slow down then reaccelerate, on the reacceleration it would flare and buck before finally getting up to speed, which a few times has led to a P0734 being thrown and the PCM commanding it to stay locked in 3rd.
I added some Lucas stop slip and it seemed to have helped during the winter. The car was also about a pint low on trans fluid so I added some Castrol import (specced for SP-III) and got it up to level.
Now that it's 90+ here every day I'm thinking the fluid is getting baked in the pan just by the ambient temps. Nasty SP-III that probably has never been changed. The car doesn't really do a lot of the other stuff anymore, but now the TC likes to unlock and lock repeatedly if I have light throttle application. It drives me absolutely insane.
This whole time I was assuming that the trans was on borrowed time. My father, being an old school mechanic, advised me not to change the fluid and just drive it till it drops. But I'm starting to think that maybe it's just the fluid that is toast, I don't think the fluid has ever been changed. The car drives perfectly fine and normal like, 75-80% of the time. My line of thinking now is that if the trans was truly shot, it would be acting way wonkier than it does, and I don't think it would have gone almost 15k miles this way.
I'm hesitant to drop the pan and change the fluid because if the fluid is full of clutch material and that's truly keeping the trans going - I don't have the money to rebuild or replace. Not even with a junkyard unit. But at this point I really think the fluid is just....WAY old. And isn't doing it's job properly anymore, additive pack broke down, etc.
So BITOG forumers, what would you do? And just for kicks, say I change the fluid and the trans starts acting way more wonky, meaning there was a lot of clutch material in the old fluid - would it be possible to pull the drain plug and refill with the old fluid, or would it be better to just dump a bunch of Lucas into the new fluid?
