Good transmission maintenance practices mean the difference between years of untroubled use of your vehicle and a thousands-dollar-repair job ruining your plans for a month, or longer. Here are five transmission maintenance tips.
There isn’t a transmission problem that cannot be caused or exacerbated by low levels of transmission fluid. You can find different advice online of how often to check your transmission fluid by number of kilometres, or city versus country kilometres, or different time intervals. But we at Mister Transmission say, for good transmission maintenance, check it at least once a month. Set aside some time on the first weekend of every month, pop your hood, dip your dipstick into your transmission fluid, and check the level. If it’s below the recommended level, top it up. The whole thing can be done in less than five minutes and it could save you thousands of dollars in the long run.
Seriously, check your transmission fluid. Do not neglect this transmission maintenance task. The importance of transmission fluid cannot be overstated, so don’t just check the fluid level, check the fluid itself. Good transmission fluid should have a reddish translucent appearance and should smell largely neutral. If your transmission fluid smells foul or burnt, or if it’s opaque, there’s something wrong with your transmission. Bring it into a Mister Transmission.
One last note on transmission fluid: you shouldn’t have to top up your fluid levels every monthly transmission maintenance check. If you find yourself topping up your fluid too often, you likely have a leak. Take some time every once and a while to look under your vehicle after you’ve been parked for a while for patches of transmission fluid.
A key aspect of transmission maintenance is treating your transmission with love and respect. Do not get lazy or procrastinate with your vehicle. We tend to take for granted things we use every day, but try to remember that your automobile, even if you drive a 1996 Fiat Multipla, is an incredibly intricate and expensive work of mechanization. So take the extra second to come to a complete stop before you shift from drive to reverse and vice versa. Wait until you’re completely stopped before you shift into park. And when parking on an incline, please engage your parking brake.
Even if you do all the above and follow your vehicle’s user manual, good transmission maintenance still requires professional work. Mister Transmission’s multi-check inspection can detect any minor problems and we can replace small things like the transmission filter just to be safe. Contact us to learn more about transmission maintenance.
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