Thread: Automatic Life

Mine was reconditioned at 270,000Kms. The shift from 2nd to 3rd was slow and engaged with a soft jolt. The technical term for this is slurring I believe.

onebob

Mine has also just been reconditioned, at about 270,000km, and had a fair bit of wear and damage done to it.

Originally Posted by CaptainJack

Previous owner told he his mechanic said not to serve it as it could cause issues.
Me being me, took that advise and threw it out the window.
decided not just to drop the fluid, but fully flush it twice over.

I've had this story from my mechanic and I responded in the same way.
I'm still debating whether on not to stick with an annual flush with conventional oil or go with the Syntrans and a longer interval.

Clearly, a properly thought-out servicing program is the way to go though.

2001 Disco 2 TD5 auto with just over 253K on the odo.
I have been travelling full time across Oz (mainly WA) since 2010 on a combination of black top and outback dirt roads/tracks/goat trails and towing a van of just under 3 tonne and almost the same weight all up in the disco.I have had no issues with the transmission to date (touch wood!!)
I service the vehicle myself, do fluid changes across the board at around 20K whether needed or not and use only Nulon fluids. I'm sure that other fluid brands mentioned are fine, but, I had an issue with a series 1 LR many years ago when I had a seious mechanical issue whilst towing a fully ladden tandem trailer and drove all the way back to home base (about 250km) with no oil pressure at all... I was relying on the hype at the time about the benefit of Nulon's teflon coating throught the engine giving a high degree of protection to the engine in such an event. I am happy to say that I arrived at my destination without any further issues and after carrying out repairs I could find no evidence of any further damage due to running without any oil pressure. I'm starting to sound like an ad for nulon here, but I can honestly say I have no connection with them at all.
When I bought the disco in late 2009 it had 150K on the clock and I did a transmission fluid change using a recommended spec fluid as I new it was going to get a reasonable workout moving house from Melbourne to NE Victoria using a covered tandem furniture trailer (one of the hire ones).
On the first trip I got as far as the Craigieburn hill on the Hume when I had to pull over due to what seemed to be a slipping transmission and a stench from burning trans fluid. Waited at the top of the hill for an hour or so before continuing on again. When I got back to Melbourne the first thing I did was to ask a lot of questions in the forums and and was advised by an auto place (not named) to use Nulon's fully synth multivehicle auto fluid which I did. I did about another dozen trailer trips up and down the Hume without any further issues. I used this same fluid to do a trip from Melb to Darwin, down the west coast and back to Melb towing my 3 tonne van and after checking the fluid on arriving back, to my surprise the fluid looked as good as new and had not even the slightest tinge of a burning smell.
So, needless to say, I am very happy with the brand of fluid/s I use and, with any luck, should I experience a serious failure again whilst out in the middle of whoop whoop it might just afford me a similar level of protection in a worst case scenario. The way I see it is that it is better to have a barrier of teflon protection than not.
Mind you, you could also achieve the teflon coating by using a bottle of additive in your 'other' good quality oils as well.
Seems like pretty cheap 'just in case' insurance to me.
Just for interest, I have not added an additional cooler and my transmission temp probe shows a fairly constant 50 - 60 degrees Celcius whilst driving, except when driving through the larger towns/cities where there are numerous up/down hills, traffic lights and constant stopping and starting. I have seen the temp go as high as 80 - 90 degrees.... but this is still well within limits.

Any problem in mixing the synthetic oil with Dex III, ie if I do a service and replace the existing oil with Synth, there'll obviously be some Dex III still in there. An issues with that?

Nope, no dramas.

Sent from my HTC One using AULRO mobile app

Looks like a lot of people get more than 200,000kms

Mine has done just over 300k. Should Inbe worried?
Change oil every 40k using Transmax Z and the only towing is 6x4 trailer to local tip 4-5 times a year.