Tranny flush or?

[SJAndrew]

I've seen and read that a tranny flush is better than a fluid change via the pan drop. The reasoning is that the flush uses chemicals to loosen varnish in the vanes of the tq converter and provides a much cleaner end result. Considering a pan drop results in only about 1/3 of your flud being replaced, this makes sense to me.

My question: I've pan-dropped and changed my tranny fluid several times over the 14 years I've owned my car. Is a "flush" really that much better such that I need to change my procedure?

 

[The Guz]

It's best practice to stick with the pan drop and fluid change than possibly having issues come up due to the flush.

 

[blueguy]

Flush's tend to do more harm than good...especially if it has never been done.

 

[Couch]

Changed my tranny fluid 3 times in 120,000 so far. has been close to clean everytime. usually i do a pan drop and filter change. then follow with the flush.

on that note high mileage vehicles that have never been flushed you may want to flush it twice, or depending on the machine have it run longer.

 

[Explicit_Spade]

I've always done pan drops on my GPs and never had a problem.

 

[Scottydoggs]

if the trans has had regular pan drops its whole life, and the fluid is nice and red all the time, and at every pan drop, then by all means do a flush.

its when the trans has never been serviced and has burnt up brown fluid that you don't want to do a flush, all the crap suspended in the brown fluid is all that's keeping it alive at that point. so the most you would want to do is a pan drop and filter. it needs the rest of the old fluid to keep working.

 

[brandonl2000]

yeah i would just stick with the pan drop just to be safe. when i did mine, the fluid was a bit toasty and not so bright red, so i will never be flushing; i'll just stick with pan drops, as it revived my tranny with new fluid.

 

[SJAndrew]

I installed a drain plug a while back in the pan to facilitate the drop method (a lot less messy this way). I have about 140k miles and I've dropped the pan ~5 times. The tranny has worked great throughout its life.

The fluid is not bright red, it's more like red/brown. Then again, I've not dropped the pan in a year or so (so it's time - hence this thread).

I will drop and change per usual.

Thanks guys!