My ATF has been completely replaced twice. 60K and 102K miles. A few drain and fills in between. No troubles at all with it. However, the pan hasn't been dropped and cleaned. I've got a bug to do it. Opinions seem to differ on this one. Should I bother, or leave well enough alone? If I do it, are there any cautions or tricks to it on this particular tranny? The fluid looks OK, not super. I'm at 114k miles.

TIA!

I dropped the pan and replaced the filter at about 140k without any incident (now have almost 195k). As far as I know, it was its first trans service. It was a messy job but pretty much straight forward with no gotchas.

As far as doing it it cant hurt if done right and there are some magnets in the pan that should collect any metal shavings resulting from shearing of gears and such. I just did it to mine but my fluid was nasty, not my fault as I just bought it a few months ago, but I also work for a tranny parts distributor so I got a new filter,fluid and gasket for about $12. pretty simple to do. also watch out for the filter as it holds more fluid then it looks like it should. mine kept spurting out then stopping and starting almost got me in the eye. also I hear these are great trannys we almost never send out anything but filters and the occasional solenoid for them. good luck. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/patriot.gif" alt="" />