Transmission Fluid Flush vs. Change
 

Here's one I could sure use some guidance on:

Dealer "A" says, "Oh, the auto trannie should be FLUSHED with a complete fluid exchange on our machine every time! The $160 is worth it!" So I've been doing that every 30,000 for 120,000 miles.

Dealer "B" says, "Awww, a flush isn't really necessary, it's a gimmick. We do a pan drop and drain, and charge $75."

(Now, my last Protege auto trannie (1990) went 260,000 miles with just "changes"...the flushing machines weren't generally available then...sooooo....

I know the torque convertor holds about 1/2 (?) the fluid...so it would seem to make sense to flush it...but is the flush just a high-priced hustle, and the drain and refill be just as good?

I flushed mine at 30K with Mobil1 synthetic & hooked up a Hayden tranny cooler. From now on I plan on simply draining and changing the fluid every 30K miles. I don't see it being worth the money for a flush every time in my eyes. Maybe at 90-100K miles I'll do it again .. but definitely not at 60K.

Should you do manual trannies too?

It's not as critical .. but I would probably change the fluid at least every 50K miles.

I think you answered your own question on this one. The only time I have ever flushed anything to do with the transmission was after a total failure and I flushed the transmission cooler to get any small pieces of metal out of it.

Just for thise interested. A lot of newer cars are coming with Lifetime transmission oil. This is designed to last the lifetime of the vehicle and can't be changed without some major work being done. You can tell these cars from others by a couple of ways. One is the simple way, it says in the owner's manual. The other way is that there is no dipstick for the transmission to check the oil level. The idea behind this is that if there are no leaks, then the level is fine as a transmission doesn't burn oil like an engine does. It also stops customers from putting oil in their transmission because they think it's low even though it isn't.

Oh before I forget, go with dealer B.

@shasta: A drain and fill is all you can do on a manual transmission. I'd do it every 60K miles.