Tranny flushed and...

[Robotazky]

OMG it shifts so nice now. I have an '09 5 GT with just under 27,000 miles.

It definitely upshifts more smoothly. I couldn't ask for better. The real surprise is how smooth the downshifts are now. Also, I was having this sort of surge when I let off the brake and the torque converter seemed to make the car lunge without pressing the gas pedal at all. It was weird and had done it since I drove it off the lot. It was bad when the A/C would kick on at a stop light. Now, it doesn't do it at all. But the downshifts, oh so smooth.

The fluid was brown. I let the dipstick drip on white cardboard before and after and will post pics later. Bottom line: change your ATF fluid every 25,000-30,000 on these cars. Or you can just buy a new tranny every 3-4 years I guess.

*EDIT* Awakened to tranny fluid on my garage floor. It is now confirmed that dealers cannot perform work correctly anymore. I will have to drive 180 miles round trip just to deal with this. It will have to sit until next weekend, which means major headaches all week taking my fiancee to work and picking her up. I should have just done it myself, as usual. Dealer techs don't give a flying **** about the work they do. Times like this make me hate cars.

*EDIT 2* I put the car on ramps/jacks and started to take the lower cover off only to find that the jackass techs broke one of the clamps with the nut on the backside, I'm sure by using air tools on it like idiots, so I ended up having to break the entire cover off to see what is wrong. I will be billing the dealer and taking them to small claims if they don't pay. Once I got in there, there was transmission fluid from the power steering service all over the entire bottom of the car. It's too early to tell if it is because of a leak or because of the dumb f**** leaving fluid everywhere, pooled up and dripping. I also found a large oil stain on the door's fabric. I assume it's ruined. I hate dealers.

 

[joeym509]

This is funny, I just had mine flushed with the same and am experiencing the exact same things. My tranny is as smooth as butta....

 

[rodslinger]

I've experienced the same thing. Not sure what it is with Mazda transmissions but they are the only car I've ever owned that I could also see an improvement in shift performance after a fluid change. Even back on a 1992 Protege we had. I would change the trans fluid about every 15k miles and it always felt nice and smooth afterward.

Any other brand I've owned there was never any difference in how the trans shifted after a fluid exchange.

 

[Robotazky]

I've experienced the same thing. Not sure what it is with Mazda transmissions but they are the only car I've ever owned that I could also see an improvement in shift performance after a fluid change. Even back on a 1992 Protege we had. I would change the trans fluid about every 15k miles and it always felt nice and smooth afterward.

Any other brand I've owned there was never any difference in how the trans shifted after a fluid exchange.

I was telling my dad about having to flush a tranny at 27,000 miles and how much better the shifting was afterward. He was shocked and said he put way over 100,000 miles on his '81 Olds 98 tranny fluids, which is a car he put 400,000 miles on, so he used it as an example. He said he thinks he only flushed it once, so 200,000 miles. Of course, the tranny did die right at 400,000, but the engine was still going alright, not strong. It had the Olds 307 ci. Truly was an unbelievable car.

 

[flcruising]

I'm sorry to hear you having to deal with all this. This is exactly why I prefer to do my own maintenance work.

I had a time with those clamps you mentioned when I did our first oil changed. We bought our car used (12k miles) from Michigan, so I'm sure the salted roads weren't helpful. Every bolt was rusted and stuck to some degree to it's nut, so I had to JB weld some back onto the plastic they clip to. When I reassembled I brushed off the rust and used anti-seize on everything. This had made it a non-issue with each change thereafter. I just reapply anti-seize every time now.

Hope you can get this mess straightened out.

 

[#sand]

Just had the dealer flush and change the trans fluid last week. 50K miles on my wife's 06. Didn't notice a huge difference but the car has always run well. The dealer over-serviced the new fluid by 1 pint. Even with the trans cold, the level was above the max line in the 65deg range. Drained the pint out of the pan. Awesome that the dealer can't even service fluid correctly.