First I'd like to dispense with any "potty humor"...Yes, 'flush' makes me think of a toilet, but in the context of a car, flushing is not done 10+ times a day, it is a once-a year thing, perhaps even once in the life of the car.
I ordered maybe 18 quarts of trans fluid, thinking I'd have a few quarts left over after the flush. Nope. So I refrained from yelling or accusing them of taking off with a few. Later was advised 'I suspect the transmission shop did a fluid exchange, pumping in the new fluid as the old was being removed. This is the preferred method, ideally you don't want to flush with a solvent and have a chance of leaving some behind in the system' I still don't understand what's wrong with draining the old fluid and putting in plain fluid for a month and then switching to the expensive stuff, sort of like with an engine: When I was a kid I dreamed of that magical engine flush that cleaned things in 5 or 10 minutes. A mechanic (very old-school; dropped out of elementary school to help out on the farm) advised the kerosene & Diesel fuel tricks. Now I see Auto-RX as the best "flush" because it takes a month to work, and that is NOT a bad thing. In fact it's far better than something that works in 10 minutes.
Did the trans shop actually get little pieces of crud out by rinsing them out with stuff that is that expensive? In the case of oil, trans fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, whatever; would it not be better to have a drain & fill with normal-grade stuff, and another drain & fill with the good stuff a month or so after?
What exactly is a flush in each of these contexts, how are they done, and why? And why is it better (or is it?) than two drain & fills in a short timeframe?
I know, I know: You can't just buy a car with few oil changes and 100,000+ miles on it, have 3000 mile OCI's for a year and proclaim it as clean as if you used LC, let alone Auto-RX. But if you had two oil changes a month apart, wouldn't that get out a lot of crud and act as a "flush"?
I hope you see what I am asking here. I've never seen a topic that approaches this in all my surfing of the site.
Let's dialogue!
Rob-the-oil-nut
I ordered maybe 18 quarts of trans fluid, thinking I'd have a few quarts left over after the flush. Nope. So I refrained from yelling or accusing them of taking off with a few. Later was advised 'I suspect the transmission shop did a fluid exchange, pumping in the new fluid as the old was being removed. This is the preferred method, ideally you don't want to flush with a solvent and have a chance of leaving some behind in the system' I still don't understand what's wrong with draining the old fluid and putting in plain fluid for a month and then switching to the expensive stuff, sort of like with an engine: When I was a kid I dreamed of that magical engine flush that cleaned things in 5 or 10 minutes. A mechanic (very old-school; dropped out of elementary school to help out on the farm) advised the kerosene & Diesel fuel tricks. Now I see Auto-RX as the best "flush" because it takes a month to work, and that is NOT a bad thing. In fact it's far better than something that works in 10 minutes.
Did the trans shop actually get little pieces of crud out by rinsing them out with stuff that is that expensive? In the case of oil, trans fluid, brake fluid, power steering fluid, whatever; would it not be better to have a drain & fill with normal-grade stuff, and another drain & fill with the good stuff a month or so after?
What exactly is a flush in each of these contexts, how are they done, and why? And why is it better (or is it?) than two drain & fills in a short timeframe?
I know, I know: You can't just buy a car with few oil changes and 100,000+ miles on it, have 3000 mile OCI's for a year and proclaim it as clean as if you used LC, let alone Auto-RX. But if you had two oil changes a month apart, wouldn't that get out a lot of crud and act as a "flush"?
I hope you see what I am asking here. I've never seen a topic that approaches this in all my surfing of the site.
Let's dialogue!
Rob-the-oil-nut
