The concept of the Tranny flush is Universally hated here but let me tell you a tale & propose a question. What do you do when you have performed the drain & fill religously & still run into problems??

Family has 3 LS 400 sedans. The oldest of the fleet is a 236,000 mile 1990 owned since new.

Car is kept in great shape but occasionally has age/maintenace issues. Was decided this week that it was time for some transmission work due to hard shifts & problems getting straight into drive at startup. This car does get tranny fluid changes so it by no means has been neglected. 30,000 miles ago the pan had been dropped & the filter changed & fluid added. Car is adult driven so as most of us know the tranny should not have given up the ghost at 236,000.

Had a date on Monday to see the tranny man so in advance of that & in desperation we decided to try a flyer & chase down the closest mechanic with a BG flush machine in our area.

I had the BG pre-flush ready to go & provided that as well as 9 quarts of Toyota T-IV fluid. Capacity of an A341E is 8.8qt!

Glad to report that we are happy for now but I will keep CLF members informed. Service cost $85.00 + fluid & BG pre-flush.

 

Damon,

Geez...I've been wanting to flush my 2LS for awhile and many members here, as you mentioned, hates the idea and prefer the drain & fill. I recently had a Lexus mechanic recommend the same thing. I have 140k miles right now and I purchased the car at 80k miles. BTW, what is "BG"? I just assuming the prior owner never did a flush. I really want to flush as a piece of mind! Please advise. Thanks.

 

BG manufactures automotive shop equipment & additives.

If you go to their site you can find a mechanic close to you that is BG equipped.

http://www.bgfindashop.com/locator/index.php

I used part #106 Quick Clean prior to the flush.

"BG Quick Clean for Automatic Transmissions is a safe and effective solvent/dispersant cleaner that will quickly remove accumulated deposits from the valve body, filter screen and other automatic transmission components. This product is designed for use in the BG Power Flush and Fluid Exchange System".

 

who said there was hatred for a trans flush

im pretty sure all the rumors of it screwing the car up were "silenced"

 

PD,

So even you don't recommend tranny flush? I'm just confused about the whole thing. So what would you recommend for me? My 2LS has 140k. I bought the car at 90k. I'm assuming that nothing like a flush has ever been done, since the majority of people do not recommend it. I recently had a member (lexus mechanic) did a drain and fill and recommended not to either. I was ready to do a complete flush, and was actually quite disappointed when he talked me out of it. He did say that the fluid was a bit dark. I just thought that it was time for a flush. A flush would have given me some sort of peace of mind. Any advice will be greatly appreciated. I'm really confused about this subject. Thanks.

 

i DO recco trans flushes!

 

absolutely do it...I had a Lexus dealership do a complete tranny flush when i purchased my friends well maintained 1990 LS400 with 233K miles...3 years later and smooth as silk!

 

all the information you are passing around is good my trans guy said if you have a lot of miles on the tranny and it hasn't been changed it can be bad due to there is some sludge in the trans and when a flush is done the sludge could break away from the walls and get caught in the fluid lines clogging them also breaking away from seals causing some to leak. The head trans guy at my trans shop said it's better to drop the first load of old oil and then use the drain plug to do more oil drops till the fluid is pretty red which is about 6-9 drops. You run the engine for about 10 minutes between each drop to allow the trans fluid to go through the converter mixing with old oil and then as more drops are done the tranny oil comes clean, also there are some stories from other people on this post reply that have heard that some of the pumps are high flow and can damage the trans pump when pumping out the old fluid????? Lexus trans are not cheap but can go up to 600,000 miles when taken care of and it has been done.

 

The A341E tranny is rock solid. Give it every chance to work properly & you should be rewarded.

The situation I posted about is a case of myth busting. My father firmly believed that the $100.00 + dollars he was about to spend on the flush & T-IV was going to be money down the drain.

I knew several things that we should all keep in mind.

1)Fluid may not have been perfect in this LS but had been drained & refilled at least 4 times that we could document. ( we should have done no damage to the internals of the tranny under these conditions!)

2)Adult driven LS400's do not loose transmissions under normal circumstnaces.
We had operated under Ward Cleaver conditions!

3) Myth that all the crap caught in my tranny is preventing leaks & allowing it to still function normally. Don't fear the old myth of the leak, fear the cost of a rebuild.

4) Drain & refill theory is adequate if you practice it from the start. Do it 15-25K miles & you should never have an issue.

5) Once you have left the reservation & put on 100,000K miles without a change You are kidding yourself to expect miracles by changing 23.2% of the fluid which is the result of 1 drain & refill procedure.


Bottom line. It was easy to conclude that this A341E was not actually physically damaged & malfunctioning due to wear & tear. There was every reason to believe that if we restored it to pristine operating conditions it would perform as intended.

 

is the transaxle fluid the same as the transmission?

 

ls400's dont have transaxles, the axle+transmission are separate as this is a RWD car not FWD and this is NOT a ferrari that has the trans at the *** end

 

The rear end oil is 75-90 weight