by tony jj » Fri Aug 10, 2007 6:08 am
I have an 04 with the 4 cyclinder. I have 125,000 miles on the car, I drive alot of highway miles. I had the car flushed at 40,000 and then at 80,000. This week I did something different. I changed the filter in the trans. There is a drain plug in the trans pan. I think it is a 10 mm allen head plug. I drained about 4 quarts of oil from the pan. Next I removed the 20 or so bolts that held the pan in place. These bolts had a 10 mm hex head. It was very hard to get the 5 bolts removed from the drivers side of the pan. I used a 1/4 inch drive, with a swivel on a 10 mm socket.
I dropped the pan and replaced the filter, which I bought at Auto Zone for $25.00. Filled trans with oil, drove 100 miles drained trans. again and filled with oil.
I then cut the old filter in half to see how much junk was trapped in the filter. I am glad to say there was very little dirt or metal shavings in the filter.
I will do this again, in another 100,000 miles. I think I will drain and fill every 25,000 miles. I think this is cheap insurance to keep this trans. going.