Specific "automatic" transmission maintenance?

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OK, well, long story, my newest car, the 88 Dodge Aries that I;ve mentioned in previous threads; the old lady who I bought it from said she had the transmission rebuilt about a month or so before I bought it since she couldn't sell it with the "broken" transmission, NOTE: she didn't specify exactly what was "broken" about it......but I do have the receipt:

in fact, the only "maintenance receipt" that came with the vehicle. Remove Trans, "Overhaul Unit" (I guess that means like "Rebuild"?), Add transcooler, install unit, and road test. For a total of $950. - note, I only paid $1500 for the gem
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Now, here's my question, is there anything I should do to keep this tranny in shape? any "additive" recommendations? Trans-X? Trans-Tune? Or any other suggested additve? Or simply none at all, and just drive it as is and pray it doesn't break? lol.

A colleague of mine recently had his truck transmission "rebuilt" and well......about 4 months after the rebuilt, it "broke" again, and the mechanic didn't give any warranty or anything....well, at least I'll know who NOT to go to next time
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Ask them if they'll give you a longer warranty if you use a different fluid. Otherwise, use whatever they recommend and hope for the best.
 
One of the best transmission additive is Lubegard. The recommend dosage is 1 oz per quart, so that if you buy a quart bottle for $20 plus shipping of about $5 you can use it in 4-5 transmissions.
 
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
One of the best transmission additive is Lubegard. The recommend dosage is 1 oz per quart, so that if you buy a quart bottle for $20 plus shipping of about $5 you can use it in 4-5 transmissions.


And exactly what benefit does it provide?
 
Lubegard shmubegard, stay away from the tranny additives and use a quality recommended fluid when changing it out, which should not be for a while. (If they did a good job on the rebuild, if they didn't, nothing will help)
 
Originally Posted By: oilboy123
Add a Magnifine filter to protect it better.


What does a Magnefine do that a drain pan or drain plug magnet doesn't do, at zero additional cost?
 
A magnefine just about doubles the surface area of the in pan filter. If you do not discount the filter along with the magnet in the filter housing then it is superior than just a pan magnet.

BTW, when I drop the pan on a vehicle I add a high temp Neodymium magnet to the pan magnet that is already there. If I have time, and if the owner wants I will add a Magnefine also.
I have installed the above on a dodge van, a Nissan Xterra, a Ford Taurus and a Ford F-150. All of them had have Zero issues.
They all shift better afterward also, but I attribute that to new fluids added after the pan has been dropped.

BTW, Lubegard Red is some great stuff. I have added it to several vehicles and all of them have had some change in shift quality. Some more than others.

Being that you don't know what has been done to the transmission I would go ahead and add the Magnefine and the Lubegard.
You could do both for less than $40 and I can't see how either would hurt.
 
Originally Posted By: SuperDave456
You could do both for less than $40 and I can't see how either would hurt.


No, it won't hurt, other than the $40 you just spent on getting no tangible benefits and the time you spent accomplishing this. "...some change in shift quality," and "Zero issues" don't seem like $40 worth of benefits to me, especially when that "change" seems so sketchy and variable, but then I'm not made of time and money, and I don't sell these things or installation services for a living.

The real question is, has anyone ever lost a transmission and the mechanic said "if only you had used Lubegard and a Magnefine, this would never have happened?" And if Lubegard is $11.75 retail for such a miraculous-sounding treatment, why doesn't the manufacturer put it in there when they could surely get the product for a much lower bulk cost? If neodymium magnets and add-on filters are so great for transmissions, why don't we have people on here all the time saying that their ATF died due to insufficient filtration or excessive ferrous particulates in the fluid? And what about the risks of modifying the fluid characteristics, fluid plumbing fixtures, and possibly fluid pressure?

Not trying to be a jerk, I'm just saying that over-thought and over-wrought maintenance based on nothing but marketing hyperbole is a high cost, low return investment.
 
I believe there was a TSB from Saab awhile back about adding lubegard red to their transmissions if anyone cares to dig it up. there's one OEM for ya.
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Those dodge 3 speeds are pretty reliable. Don't do anything for at least 30k. They do need occasional band adjustment.

I wonder if this was a hole-in-the-wall one man trans shop. Sounds like it.
 
Originally Posted By: J. A. Rizzo
Originally Posted By: SuperDave456
You could do both for less than $40 and I can't see how either would hurt.


No, it won't hurt, other than the $40 you just spent on getting no tangible benefits and the time you spent accomplishing this. "...some change in shift quality," and "Zero issues" don't seem like $40 worth of benefits to me, especially when that "change" seems so sketchy and variable, but then I'm not made of time and money, and I don't sell these things or installation services for a living.

The real question is, has anyone ever lost a transmission and the mechanic said "if only you had used Lubegard and a Magnefine, this would never have happened?" And if Lubegard is $11.75 retail for such a miraculous-sounding treatment, why doesn't the manufacturer put it in there when they could surely get the product for a much lower bulk cost? If neodymium magnets and add-on filters are so great for transmissions, why don't we have people on here all the time saying that their ATF died due to insufficient filtration or excessive ferrous particulates in the fluid? And what about the risks of modifying the fluid characteristics, fluid plumbing fixtures, and possibly fluid pressure?

Not trying to be a jerk, I'm just saying that over-thought and over-wrought maintenance based on nothing but marketing hyperbole is a high cost, low return investment.


There are two good transmission shops that I know of that add Lubegard to every unit they rebuild they swear by the stuff. SuperDave456 gave some sound advise. LG lowers temps of tranny fluid, keeps them from forming varnish, and improves shift quality. The product has a long history, and most good tranny shops use it. The MF filter does additional filtering, nothing wrong with that. But then again opinions vary.
 
Thanks for the input. Yea, I was considering synthetics, particular the royal purple MaxATF at the next fluid change.

What had me curious is it had less than 30k on the clock when I bought it, why a rebuild/revamp so soon? Are these trannies "delicate" or something? I've had many mechanics say the engines are near bullet proof lol. But 29k seems a bit strange for a tranny rebuild - that's why I'm looking for preventative maintenance ideas in advance
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As far as any "warranty" - I doubt I even apply since I'm not the "original" purchaser....you know how warranties go
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Anyways, I don't know, the shop seems reputable, PRO TORQUE CONVERTERS in Melbourne, FL. A couple sites/forums referenced the name so I don't think they're too shady
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Originally Posted By: J. A. Rizzo
Originally Posted By: SuperDave456
You could do both for less than $40 and I can't see how either would hurt.


No, it won't hurt, other than the $40 you just spent on getting no tangible benefits and the time you spent accomplishing this. "...some change in shift quality," and "Zero issues" don't seem like $40 worth of benefits to me, especially when that "change" seems so sketchy and variable, but then I'm not made of time and money, and I don't sell these things or installation services for a living.

The real question is, has anyone ever lost a transmission and the mechanic said "if only you had used Lubegard and a Magnefine, this would never have happened?" And if Lubegard is $11.75 retail for such a miraculous-sounding treatment, why doesn't the manufacturer put it in there when they could surely get the product for a much lower bulk cost? If neodymium magnets and add-on filters are so great for transmissions, why don't we have people on here all the time saying that their ATF died due to insufficient filtration or excessive ferrous particulates in the fluid? And what about the risks of modifying the fluid characteristics, fluid plumbing fixtures, and possibly fluid pressure?

Not trying to be a jerk, I'm just saying that over-thought and over-wrought maintenance based on nothing but marketing hyperbole is a high cost, low return investment.


If you really want to learn something about this topic and be able to comment with some authority, go the the SAE website and look for white papers on automatic transmission contamination by two gents named Eleftherakis and Khalil. These two engineers started researching the effects of lube contamination back in the '80s and are still engaged in it. There's a lot more to this topic than your limited, anecdotal-based viewpoint is allowing.

If you go through those copyrighted papers, yes they will cost you I'm afraid, you'll see trans failures due to contamination has been a relatively big problem. In the old days, with hydraulic only units, it was a lesser problem. because the tolerances were higher. Electronic transmission are another matter because they use electromagnetic valves to control shifts and since magnets attract ferrous metals, the iron, which makes up approximately 50 percent of the contamination, is drawn to the area where you least want it. If those particles don't jam the valve outright, they effect it's operation causing hysteresis, a kind of fluttering of the valve. As I understand it, hysteresis leads to a little extra slippage. Slippage is wear and that shortens the life of the trans every time it happens. The valve will also be subject to greater wear due to these particles and may begin to leak. Lost pressure causes slippage as well, again shortening life.

A trans problem is most notable to the owner when the trans is new or rebuilt.
If the trans fails at 100K miles, the owner is generally more forgiving but the root cause at both ends of the spectrum is often due to contamination.

As to whether they would result in life extension or not, I refer you to several SAE papers, 2001-01-0867 "Automatic Transmission Hydraulic Cleanliness" (Nieuwland & Droste), 99PC-418 "Optimizing Automatic Transmission Filtration" (Eleftherakis & Khalil), 900561 "Development of a Lab Test Contaminant for Transmissions" (Eleftherakis & Khalil). Those papers, and others, based on testing that started in the '80s, sold me on the premise that there ain't no such thing as trans oil that's too clean.

If you want further evidence, do a web search for "remanufactured automatic transmissions." Look in your local yellow pages and see how many transmission specialists are in your town. Somebody is feeding these businesses. Take note that many tranny shops install an inline filter (whether they advertise it or not) to make sure the new trans doesn't die from contamination lodged in coolers or left in the tranny during the rebuild.

You can achieve the same thing as adding filtration by frequent oil changes. The first change is the most important, because an automatic generates 75 percent of the total amount of contaminants in it's lifetime during the first 5K miles of operation. The thing is, to bring contamination levels down to what most manufacturers think are reasonable (ISO 16/14 up to 18/14 or so), you have to dump out relatively fresh fluid. It's much easier and oil resource friendly to add an inline filter (the Magnefine is only one of several similar).

As to the Lubegard, I have no opinion. I don't know the product but in general, I think filtration is a more important aspect, so I'm likely more in your camp than on the other side. If your tranny is full of junk, an oil additive isn't going to help it. Once adequate filtration is done, then we can look at additives.

As to factory filtration. some newer automatics are down to 80u. Many are around 100u. Older ones are at 150-200u. The Magnefine, and similar, use a 35u filter and some have a very effective magnet that gets virtually all of that iron (50 percent of the total "junk"), so the net effectiveness is somewhat higher than the 35u filtration would indicate. Spin on filters can be of use as well, some of them having tighter filtration and more capacity than the inlines.

As to efficacy of cooler line filtration, here are some test data on two trucks:

The Magnefine reduced the ISO cleanliness code of the oil in the trans of my '05 F150HD from a already clean 15/14/12 (it was a fairly fresh change right after I bought it with 7K miles) to 13/12/9. That's an 81 percent reduction in the particle count in 2200 miles. I installed a Racor LFS spin-on filter kit in my old '86 Ford diesel, which has a 10 micron (absolute) filter and it dropped from a 16/15/13 (again fairly fresh oil) to a 15/14/11 in only 274 miles, a 66 percent reduction in the actual particle count.

"Return on investment" is difficult to define. If you trade a vehicle in every coupla years, well before it hits 100K or goes out of warranty, there will likely not be much payback for you (but pity the next guy). I still have a truck bought almost new in '87, a car from '00 and plan to keep a '05 truck for a long while. For me, it makes sense.
 
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+1 on lubegard red. I added it to my wife's honda accord, and gas mileage shot up an amazing 5% to 10%. Pays for itself after three fillups, not to mention the transmission protection.
 
Very well put Jim! The papers you discuss are the main reason I chose bypass filtration for my automatics that can accomodate it space wise. You are correct, there is no such thing as "too clean" a fluid when talking about automatic transmissions.

An old member here (olympic?)upgraded his taxi fleet with amsoil bypass filters after incuring many transmission failures. After install and logging many miles, he pretty much eliminated failures completely. He would tap into a cooler line and return the fluid to the dipstick tube. After talkin to Gary Allen I decided to use his idea of going across the cooler circuit and using the pressure differential to "drive" the bypass filter. It has worked beautifully for me.
 
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Originally Posted By: lairdwd
+1 on lubegard red. I added it to my wife's honda accord, and gas mileage shot up an amazing 5% to 10%. Pays for itself after three fillups, not to mention the transmission protection.


If Lubegard could improve mileage by that amount for only the cost of 1 treatment, every car manufacturer in the world would already be using it. So I am calling shenanigans on your measurement methodology.
 
I would be more concerned with the headgasket popping than your tranny failing again. Chrysler 4's of that era are notorious for it (don't ask me how I know heh).

If you do anything, just change the fluid at a certain resonable interval for you. I do a gallon of ATF every couple oil changes on my cars..give or take. I think ATF is generally more forgiving than oil on changes, so if you are comfortable with the milage between swaps, then so be it.
 
Jim, I appreciate the thoughtful response. If only there were more informed discourse on BITOG, I think the board and its members would have a better reputation.

That said, I still disagree with you. Will metallic particulates cause increased wear? Probably. But that's why there's a filter and a magnet - to reduce those particles. If manufacturers could increase the life of their transmissions and potentially reduce warranty claims on transmissions with a stronger magnet and a finer filter, why wouldn't they do that? A magnefine is $16 retail or thereabouts. How much would that cost wholesale to manufacturers who would buy millions of them? That's pretty cheap insurance. And now they're selling cars with sealed transmissions that require no transmission service over the life of the car. What kinds of filters are they using for those? Are the failure rates higher than cars with Magnefines and Lubegard?

You can cite scientific and academic papers all day long, but the simple fact is that if insufficient filtration or contamination was a problem, we would have heard more about it. Why don't the car manufacturers read those papers and act on their recommendations? Why just a guy on a motor oil web site? To me, it just doesn't add up.

Transmissions are going to fail with Magnefines or not. Manufacturing defects happen, component wear happens, fluid degradation happens, insufficient maintenance happens, all sorts of things can lead to transmission failure. Clean oil is just clean oil. You haven't made a connection between that and longer life or better performance, just cited some articles and circumstantial evidence.

Given that the trend is to lesser filtration and sealed units and we haven't heard anything about higher failure rates, I'm calling the Magnefines a useless add-on that increase costs, increase risks, and offer no discernible benefit. And Lubegard, if you read their site, is pretty much the very definition of snake oil. According to them, it fixes pretty much every problem with every transmission for only $11.75. A fool and his money are soon parted principle applies here. It just sounds *way* too good to be true.
 
Well, if you don't want view the evidence, you can live with your windows all closed and curtained, believe what you want and say anything that comes to mind. If you do half a search here, you'll see a great deal of discussion on this topic. But even here is only a tiny drop of reality. You seem to view what you see from your desk chair or recliner as the total view of a particular topic. That's far from true.

You also don't seem to have a clear understanding of how the car business works. They make cost vs benefit analysis choices all the time and they are mostly concerned with the benefits to THEM. Modern technology has allowed them to make a pretty good estimate on component life. If it keeps them out of a warranty situation plus a little extra to preserve a "quality" image, they're happy to cut out a $5 filter on a car. Times 100K cars, that isn't chump change.

It may interest you to know that the contamination problems we are discussing have led to the upgrades I mentioned... a 200u screen to a 100u pad filter and even 60-80u filters. Some of the newest trannies will soon becoming coming out with 40u filters and externals to boot. They have also led to big improvements in the manufacturing area. The biggest portion of the contamination in an automatic is built-in from the manufacturing process and as the transmissions get more complex, the OEs are being dragged kicking and screaming into "clean-room" type ISO clean manufacturing processes. They can't do it the "old way" any more. To the extent that newer trannies are "sealed" (they really aren't) and "lifetime fill" it's because the lessons of contamination have finally borne some fruit. Let's hope it pays off for future car owners but it doesn't help those of us with older units. Hence, products like the Magnefine. The Magnefine has a factory part number with several manufacturers, by the way, something you'd learn with a little research.

The articles I mentioned aren't "circumstantial." They are studies done on literally thousands of oil samples and trannies over decades. Those tests show what standard of cleanliness is necessary for long trans life and that the OE's haven't done well in meeting them until quite recently (for whatever reason). You can see how much contamination is required for malfunctions to begin. You can also see a pretty standard picture of the state most automatic transmissions are in.

I sense you aren't going to be convinced, so I won't waste too much time on this. I mainly respond for the benefit of others who might have more open minds.

I wan't aware BITOG members had a bad "reputation."
 
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