Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
Only thing I've ever changed ATF on was my truck. No transmission failures on other vehicles.
I did change the manual gearbox oil in the Acura at 10 years (yeesh, that was 7 years ago now). A decade seems about right to do infrequent maintenance like changing fluid you otherwise don't. Flush the radiator, consider replacing the air filter instead of just knocking the dirt out of it. Never replaced power steering fluid before except that time I replaced the PS pump on my wife's POS Pontiac Grand Prix. Funnily enough, it was named appropriately as I sold it for a grand.
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I've changed the transmission fluid twice already on the Avalon. Scheduled maintenance by Toyota is every 60,000 miles. I bought it at 50,000 so I did it soon there after, then once again when it hit 120,000. I changed the coolant at the proper intraval too, as well as the sparkplugs, not to mention I made up my own brake fluid change intraval since Toyota doesn't have one.
But getting back on track with the observation, how much investigation is enough? Of course investing nearly $20,000 or more into something means you'll want it to last a long time. But Ford says 150,000 miles, unless other circumstances, then it should be 30,000 miles. Well, now we need to do some detective work to see if 1) how often it was actually changed and 2) if it wasn't every 30,000 miles, is there proof the car was driven only on flat highways? And that's just one part of the whole car.
Like I said, I don't know how much work they did to make sure the car was a good candidate. There's a good chance they just walked into that dealership and were fed the "Here's the car of your dreams, you must buy it!" line from the cars salesman. And now it's back at the same dealership for that $3,500 or more transmission swap.