ATX Transmission Cooler, is it worth it?

[joshritger]

I have had off and on luck with my car in regards to getting it to shift decent. The past three days here have been in the upper 90's and the car seemed to shift horribly in the afternoon on the way home from work. In the morning the temp was around 70 and the car seemed to shift ok. Is there a big benefit in cooling the tranny fluid down with an extra cooler? I was reading reports that the coolers can help smooth out the shifting and reduce the lag caused by thin tranny fluid.

Background: 07 M3 Hatch, 30,000 miles
Transmission was replaced at around 15,000 miles because of inconsistent shifting/pressure loss somewhere. New transmission shifts good sometimes, other times it is horrible. Sometimes it does not like to down shift also.

I found this cooler that isn't overly expensive and had good reviews:
B&M SuperCooler for Automatic Transmissions

Any other suggestions would be great.
Thanks,
Josh

 

[Captain KRM P5]

i think its worth it. moreso if you are putting alot of power to the ground or putting a good amount of load on the trans (hauling, towing, stop n go)

 

[TheMAN]

I suggest also switching to synthetic fluid... it'll handle the heat/load a LOT better... you should try that first before a cooler as it may void the warranty

upper 90s is really nothing compared to what we see down here and I have never seen 3s with major transmission problems

also check to make sure you have the latest TCM flash from the dealer

 

[joshritger]

ok, I was thinking about using synthetic fluids next time I had them changed, it also should have a fairly recent TCM Flash as they tried updating that last summer before they replaced the transmission. Would there be a newer flash that would affect it a lot? Also one of my big complaints is that it is not consistent, it seems to drive very differently from day to day and week to week. I can have the memory reset and it will drive great for a week or so, then it learns and drives horribly. It has been decent lately except when the ambient outside temp hit 90 ish, which is fairly high for Wisconsin. From the research I have done, it appears that the shifting is affected by the throttle position and the speed. Sometimes the car does not like to down shift, it almost feels like it is bogging out, could there be a different issue that would cause this in the fuel delivery system or the ecu? The ecu was also reflashed around the same time as the transmission replacement.

The only mods I have a sport struts and the throttle body ground mod.

No extra power mods.

Thanks,
Josh

 

[joshritger]

Any other feed back on this? The past few days have been in the 70's and the car has been driving much better. Plan to have synthetic put in when the next tranny flush is done.