Fluid Talk

[saskmazdaman11]

Went to a local shop to get the oil changed, because the closest Mazda dealer is an hour and half away. They couldn't order the cardridge filter for the 2.3, so I took a chance and told them to order a spin on Ford FL-910. The guy at the shop tried to order this specific filter, but the tool at Ford told him that it was absolutley wrong and that he knew what the "right" filter was. I don't know what part number it was but it was completely wrong. So now I got new oil but an old filter till Friday. I was a bit miffed, but they did good work, and the guy knows my father-in-law so he treated me well. The only consolation was to see a French-Canadian shop owner from Manitoba TEAR into a Ford parts guy over the phone. So I hope the FL-910 does work like some posts have said, and if it does tell Ford to sit on it.
On another note, I was driving my car (has the ATX) and for some reason after I got some gas, my car would suddenly loose power and start downshifiting. I would get to 100 kph, then the car would downshift from 4 to 3, then to 2, so I mat on it, and nothing, just a small rise in RPM, and I got my foot through the floor. I stopped and checked the trans fluid, and it is gone, like nothing left at all. I put some trans fluid in and then gas-line anti-freeze (cause as I checked the fluids the engine started struggling and stalled) My car has 48000 km on it, but what the hell? I'll admit I don't check the trans fluid more than once every 3 or 4 months, but where the hell did it go? It's not being pumped anywhere is it? I can see it breaking down to sludge but the dipstick was dry. The guy at the shop (where I got the oil changed) couldn't find a leak anywhere ( I thought I blew an o-ring). He said older models (I assume the protege) have a vaccum line to the engine so that old trans fluid would get burned off. Sounds ****** up to me but what do I know, he said my MZ3 didn't have this though. And why the hell did the engine give out?
Everything seemed fine after I topped up the fluids, so I don't think I have any questions, but any comments would be nice.

 

[mobomelter]

yeah dealing with ford SUCKS. i had my focus in for diagnostics because i broke the throttle postion sensor, when i went to the dealer i had to argue with them for almost 15 mintues to get them to give me back my car and give me the numbers for the parts so i could do the work myself. (they wanted 400 to install a 115 dollar part) bottom line is ford sucks. correct me if i'm wrong but there are 2 things that don't make sense in this story
1. wouldn't the transmission start making alot of noise/ seize if it didn't have any fluid?
2. did you check it while the car was running? (i've always seen mechanics do it that way)

 

[saskmazdaman11]

tranny

yeah dealing with ford SUCKS. i had my focus in for diagnostics because i broke the throttle postion sensor, when i went to the dealer i had to argue with them for almost 15 mintues to get them to give me back my car and give me the numbers for the parts so i could do the work myself. (they wanted 400 to install a 115 dollar part) bottom line is ford sucks. correct me if i'm wrong but there are 2 things that don't make sense in this story
1. wouldn't the transmission start making alot of noise/ seize if it didn't have any fluid?
2. did you check it while the car was running? (i've always seen mechanics do it that way)

1) yeah you would think the tranny would be fubarred, but it seems fine. There was no noise, just the car loosing all power and it downshifting.

2)Yeah the engine was running when I checked

 

[mobomelter]

1. if you ran out of all the fluid the engine should rev because there isn't anything to keep the torque converter engaged (this is what my mechanic friend told me. not sure if it applies to newer cars) my friend also said that hes never heard of the engine downshifting when it runs out of fluid.