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.

 

Another thing to check for if youre having hard shifts is the kick-down cable.. if its not properly adjusted, the transmission will think you are accelerating more than you really are, and will then kick up the line pressure.

 

You should flush with 1.5X the transmission's capacity of new fluid as some mixing does occur.

Anyway, please keep us updated on how well it works out.

 

Critic,

I think this is flush machine dependent.

 

Is this the original tranny?

For being almost a 19 year old car and its the original tranny then you should be happy it lasted this long! No matter how often you change the tranny fluid no tranny cannot last a lifetime.

I think for 236,000 miles and 19 years its done its purpose!

 

I read of very few LS400's or any Lexus for that matter that looses its tranny just because you passed over 200K.

Notice that we did not plan to take the car to the yard. The next step was planned as a tranny shop visit.

May just be me, but I would rather clean & rejuvenate than replace.

Just rode in this vehicle as mine hit the body shop. Rides & shifts well @241,762.
I had shorted it for mileage.
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Simple & important truth here is that the transmission in our case was structurally sound & was being subverted by dirty parts/fluid.

 

Ive worked on LS400's with over 500k on the clock, with the original transmissions. These cars are pretty rock solid.