The Importance of Regular Maintenance to Prevent Transmission Breakdowns

As we continue to rely on modern technology in our vehicles, it's easy to overlook the importance of regular maintenance in preventing transmission breakdowns. However, with the advancements in automatic transmissions, their complexity has increased, making them more susceptible to damage if not properly maintained.

One of the most critical aspects of transmission maintenance is the cooling system. A faulty or malfunctioning cooling system can exacerbate existing problems and cause the transmission to overheat, leading to premature wear and tear. The running of itself creates friction, and adding extra friction from dirty transmission fluid and a non-functioning coolingsystem only worsens the situation. It's essential to ensure that the coolingsystem is functioning correctly and that the transmission fluid is clean and well-maintained.

In modern automatic transmissions, there are complex electronic systems at play. The battery and alternator play a crucial role in providing power to these systems. A weak or failing battery can cause the transmission to malfunction, as it may not be able to provide enough voltage to spin the engine and run all the electronics simultaneously. Similarly, a failing alternator can lead to transmission problems, as it may not be able to maintain consistent power levels. Having a good battery and alternator is essential for preventing transmission breakdowns.

The ground cable from the battery to the frame of the vehicle is also critical in ensuring that the transmission operates correctly. If this cable becomes loose or disconnected, it can cause the transmission to malfunction, leading to costly repairs. Modern transmissions rely on direct current to function, which requires both power and ground to operate properly. It's essential to regularly inspect the ground cables and ensure they are securely connected.

In older vehicles, a dipstick is often used to monitor the transmission fluid levels. However, modern transmissions do not require this, as most have sensors that detect changes in fluid levels. Nevertheless, it's still essential to regularly check the transmission fluid levels, as a low level can cause damage to the transmission. Additionally, crawling under the vehicle every once in a while can help identify any potential issues before they become major problems.

By following these simple tips and maintaining regular checks on your transmission, you can prevent costly breakdowns and ensure that your vehicle runs smoothly for years to come. Remember, prevention is key, and by being proactive about transmission maintenance, you can save thousands of dollars in repair costs down the road.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enRev up your engines,now there's two super expensive things onyour car, there's the engine and there's theautomatic transmission, you don't want eitherof them to go out, you want them to last aslong as possible, so here's some transmissiontips, the most obvious and bring thing is,keep clean fluid in it, you got to changeit every so often, now decades ago when Iwas a young mechanic, we had to change automatictransmission fluid every 20-30,000 miles,but synthetic automatic transmission fluidlasts a lot longer, but don't be fooled bythis nonsense that people say it's lifetimefluid you never need to change it, you stillneed to change those too, so just do thatevery so often, it depends on each make andmodel, you got to do a little research likenissans I'd still do those every 30,000 milescuz their problematic transmissions, but somethinglike a toyota you could get away with changingthe fluid every 60-80,000 miles and you probablywon't have any problems, but now I'm goingto talk about thing you might not have thoughtabout, the next thing to make your transmissionlast as long as possible is your tires believeit or not,yes you want to have the correct tire pressurebecause if your tire pressure is low, yourtires are going to drag and have more friction,that makes the transmission work harder, theharder it works the faster it's going to wearout, and if you have one of these fancy newall wheel drive vehicles, realize that allyour tires have to be almost exactly the samesize from wear, when your tires wear out oryou get a blowout, on an all wheel drive vehicleif you want the transmission to last you haveto replace all 4 tires at the same time withthe same exact tires, most of the modern allwheel drive systems, the computer is continuallymonitoring tire speed/spin, it lets the transmissionadapt to what's happening, if one tire isa different size from the other either frontor back, it's going to be completely changinghow much drive it gives to each wheel to compensatefor that, and while it's doing that compensationthe internals of many of these all wheel drivetransmissions will start to wear out muchfaster cuz they keep compensating insteadof just going normally and not having to compensatefor the different size tire, which makes fora different speed and it confuses the computer,and with the addition of all these modernanti collision avoidance system in cars, absbrakes, lane assistance, even semi automaticbraking on some of them, it's important thatyour tire are all exactly the same, even ona two wheel drive vehicle, because it's monitoringall 4 wheels and crazy things can happen ifit thinks that one wheel in the back is rotatingat a different speed than one wheel at thefront just because the tires are differentsizes, now another way to make them last aslong as possible is this, when you do changethe fluid make sure you use the same fluidthat came with the transmission, in theorylots of different ones can be mixed together,but with additive packages and especiallywith these modern cvt transmissions, you wantto stick with the exact fluid that the vehiclecame with, all the modern cars come with hightech synthetic fluid, it's a very good fluid,it can take heat better, it lasts longer,it doesn't break down as fast, it's a purertype of fluid, so you want to stick to that,and not take a chance by putting a differenttype in, nobody really knows what's in eachof the different ones, you know that if itcame with one particular one you buy thatsame stuff it's going to have the same additives,it's going to have the same exact viscosityand that's very important for a modern transmission,and I know really that's one of the reasonsthat a lot of transmissions don't have dipsticksor drain plugs anymore, because the manufacturerswere worried that people are going to putthe wrong kind of fluid in it and ruin thetransmission, which I've seen quite a fewtimes, you really can't now a days, you betteroff paying a mechanic who knows what he'sdoing to change your fluid on any modern car,some of them have multi step processes thatcan take an hour and a half, including roadtest, hooking up a scan tool, measuring temperatureand pressure, it gets really complicated,and you don't want to put a monkey wrenchin the whole thing by using the wrong typeof fluid, so stick to OEM fluid on any moderntransmission,now another big tip to make your transmissionlast as long as possible is keep your coolingsystem in good shape, make sure the coolingfans are working, make sure there isn't anykind of blockage like paper bags or if youlive out in the country a zillion bugs thathave covered up your radiator, and that'sbecause most cars have transmission coolersthat help cool the automatic transmissionfluid, their generally built into the radiatorof your car, so if your radiator is runningtoo hot that's going to make your transmissionrun too hot too, now big truckers have knownthis for years, they have temperature gaugesfor their transmissions, but cars don't comethat way, unless you special order one orput on a temperature gauge yourself, yournot going to know what temperature your automatictransmission fluid is running at, so reallyyour not even going to get a warning, if yourradiator starts to overheat sure you knowyou really need to work on it, let's say thatthe part that cools your transmission is kindof blocked, it might be that your transmissionis running a little bit hotter, you don'thave a gauge for that so this is an indirectthing, make sure your cooling system is intop shape, because that with make your transmissionlast longer, because the main enemy of automatictransmissions is heat, you want to keep frictiondown as much as possible, just the very runningof itself creates friction, you don't wantto have extra friction added because the coolingsystem isn't helping to cool that frictiondown, that would just make things worse, ifyou have dirty transmission fluid and a coolingsystem that wasn't working right, there'sa double edge sword that's going to cut throughyour transmission and make it wear out faster,you want to make sure you got a good batteryand alternator in your car, because modernautomatic transmission, their all computercontrolled, if you don't have the correctbattery voltage going, if the alternator iswearing out and either puts voltage surges,or doesn't put enough voltage out you canhave transmission problems, you not mightnotice it much, but as time goes on it theelectronics are weak that can strain differentparts of the transmission and cause them tobreak down, it's a simple thing to have yourmechanic load test your battery, load testyour alternator every once in a while, it'spart of the job I do for my customers allthe time, sure in the old days when a batterywas going out and you try to start the car,it will go grunt and won't start and you knowthe battery is getting low, but these moderncars their completely different with all theseelectronics, I've had a lot of cars that willjust crank like mad but they still won't startand it's a weak battery because it doesn'thave enough power to spin the engine and runall the electronics at the same time, andsince your transmission is now controlledby all this electronic stuff, that makes iteven more important to have a good batteryand alternator, cuz if their not putting enoughelectricity out, most of the sensors on thosethings are either a 5 volt reference signalthat have very little power, or 12 volt onesthat still don't use all that much power,and if the power has gone down, it won't shiftright, they might not even go down the road,the might just start slipping if the solenoidsdon't let them shift you can have all kindsof problems, which leads me to another thingthat I have to talk about with electricityin your transmission, realize that your wholetransmission is grounded, it's negative electricity,and if the ground cable from the battery tothe frame, to the transmission isn't workingright they can go haywire, all these transmissionssolenoids, they have to get a signal fromthe computer and the module yeah, but theyalso have to have negative electricity, becausecars work on direct current, in order foranything to work it's got to have power andit's got to have ground, I've seen these thingswhere from either corrosion or somebody workedon the car and they knocked a ground straploose or even worse, took it off and didn'tput it back on, that will make the transmissiongo haywire if it doesn't have correct ground,now if you have cars like GM that are knowfor having ground faults in them, it mightnot be a bad idea if you work on your carto get a good wiring diagram of where allthe ground wires on the car are, and especiallythe transmission ground wires and check themevery once in a while when your car gets older,and the last tip is this, if you got a dipsticklike this old car check it every once in awhile to make sure it's not loosing any fluid,now of course modern transmissions, a lotof them don't have dipsticks anymore, so it'sa good idea to crawl under there every oncein a while and look at the transmission, ifit's fine it will be bone dry, but it's allcovered in oil and greasy you know somethingis wrong and have it looked at, and have thefluid topped up if necessary, because if yourun a transmission when it's getting reallylow on fluid that will destroy them, I'vehad lots of customers sometimes maybe theyhit something and the bottom of the pan getsa leak on the transmission, and then theydrive it around that way for quite some time,and when they bring it to me I find the leakand put a new pan on it, but then they justdon't work right cuz the were running lowand sucked a lot of air in and that ruinedthe inside of the transmission, so now youknow how to save thousands in transmissionrepair with some pretty simple stuff, cuzlet's face it we're all in this together,we don't want to spend our hard earned moneyfixing an automatic transmission that we cankeep from breaking in the first place,so if you never want to miss another one ofmy new car repair videos, remember to ringthat bell!\n"