ATF drain & refill every 5K?

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Mustang_Cougar

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I've been keeping an eye on a Mazda5 forum now that I own one and I happened upon a thread today where someone claims to drain & fill their A/T every OCI (5K). In all my time here at BITOG, I've never read something similar...which is surprising considering this is BITOG.

So anyway, does anyone own up to this practice? Don't get me wrong: I do a series of three drain & fills at ~50K intervals on my vehicles. But the before mentioned OCI seems extremely excessive, even for a vehicle that might meet a "severe" service schedule. Am I missing something about Mazda A/T's?

BTW: Here's the link to the Mazda5 thread; post #6.

M_C
 
Why not 3K, or .3K?

I don't feel compelled to read the thread anymore than I want to watch another mentos and coke video. People doing unreasonable, ridiculous, wasteful, etc etc etc and posting is about par for the course on the internet. I'm not closed to new ideas, but there is a cutoff point.
 
I do it every 10K in my Sonata. I evacuate it rather than drain it, but it gets the same amount of fluid out. I prefer this over doing "flushes" every 30K or whatever. There's nothing wrong with the idea; it's the mileage that matters. I'm sure you could do the math to figure out what exact mileage you should do it at to truly equate the manufacturer's recommendation for ATF changes, but whatever.
 
It might not be a bad idea considering how the vehicle is operated and that they are--most likely--- only changing 1/3 to 1/2 the total capacity of fluid used in the transmission.
 
When I had an automatic, I'd change the transmission fluid every time I changed the engine oil. It was only 2 quarts out of the 8 quart capacity, so it didn't seem to be excessive. I pulled it out of the dipstick tube with a vacuum pump from Griot's Garage.
 
That seems ridiculous to me. I like the idea of frequent drain and fills versus letting it go and flushing, particularly if there's a drain plug; more stable viscosity, add pack refreshed, some contaminants drained on a regular basis...but every 5K? Yeah, that seems over the top. 10-15K seems a lot more reasonable. Seems to be it would be more worthwhile to take some of the time spent draining and filling to install an inline or full-flow filter.

How much is the total capacity, and how much do you get out of a drain/fill? I'm doing a drain/fill every 30K, but I get out about 65-70% of the fluid--and I think even that's over the top, to be honest.
 
Originally Posted By: Mustang_Cougar
I've been keeping an eye on a Mazda5 forum now that I own one and I happened upon a thread today where someone claims to drain & fill their A/T every OCI (5K). In all my time here at BITOG, I've never read something similar...which is surprising considering this is BITOG.


You may be talking about me; I made a statement like that, but you have to keep my statement (if you were talking about mine) in context. I have a 70k mile vehicle which I bought with almost 60k miles with known original ATF in the transmission. This vehicle has a very simple drain/fill procedure, like an engine crankcase. No oil pans to drop or filters to change. So rather than spend a lot of time on day (during this super hot summer in NC), I will drain/fill 3 quarts, which is all that drains out, at each 5k mile oil change. I'll do that 3 or 4 times until I'm happy that most of the fluid has been flushed out.

Sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?
 
every 15k with Amsoil Manual transmission juice in my 2007 Honda Civic Si with 6speed transmission. The gears start to feel noticeably notchy and 2nd and 3rd gear would grind going in past 8,000rpm. With new-ish fluid, the gears are smooth as glass.

^This is a known issue over at the 8thCivic community and the service interval is followed by many to keep the 6speed transmission from feeling "crunchy"

^this is due to poorly designed and cheap gear syncro's. Honda issues a Recall on the matter in 2006 but most new Si's up till 2010 still have the same grinding issue.
 
Hokie,

No, I'm pretty sure it's not you (the poster is named "Aaron" and lives in FL). What you mentioned as your drain & fill procedure is roughly what I do at ~50K mile intervals on my vehicles; I believe what the poster in question is doing is always draining & filling 2-3qts of ATF w/every oil change (~5K miles).

What caused me concern was that I was missing some sort of "Chrysler-esque" A/T issue w/Mazda vehicles. I had thought I had researched Mazda/Ford drive trains fairly well before my purchase, so this 5K ATF drain posting sort of caught me off guard. Mind you, I don't read a lot of other posters doing this, but there were a few. Most likely I'll just continue w/my current program of drain & fills, when the time comes; it's not like I'll still own this vehicle in 10 years/100K, when a A/T issue might rear it's ugly head.
 
I change my escape transmission fluid every 7-10k. It has the cd4e trans. This transmission has no filter or pan to drop. I use supertech for about 10 bucks. takes 3 minutes extra.
 
Sounds like he would be better off adding a Magnefine.
If he races he would be better off adding a Magnefine somewhere in the loop with an after market cooler added to whatever he already has.
Hopefully he recycles the perfectly good stuff he rids himself of.
 
Originally Posted By: Jiles
It might not be a bad idea considering how the vehicle is operated and that they are--most likely--- only changing 1/3 to 1/2 the total capacity of fluid used in the transmission.


Yeah but the guys who engineered the car, spec'd the fluid, and wrote the owner's manual know that's only how much comes out.
 
Originally Posted By: eljefino
Originally Posted By: Jiles
It might not be a bad idea considering how the vehicle is operated and that they are--most likely--- only changing 1/3 to 1/2 the total capacity of fluid used in the transmission.


Yeah but the guys who engineered the car, spec'd the fluid, and wrote the owner's manual know that's only how much comes out.

The factory recommended service is for a COMPLETE fluid change.
This is done with a "flushing machine"--most dealers and reputable garages change fluid with this machine. My dealer has one.
 
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