New owner of 92/A4LD

[TWalker]

Today I bought a 92 4 door 4WD EB which is in excellent shape with the exception of a few minor things which I have found solutions for here. Bookmarked and printed tons of stuff. Thanks.

The truck has 120.8K miles, 2 previous owners (doctor and an elderly man), maintenance records etc. Very nice. Seems to have been treated well, and the drivetrain seems silky smooth.

My first concern is fluids throughout and that these trannies tend to go no further than 120K. but it seems to work fine...maybe just a little clunk when engaging into gear, but not bad....typical I guess. Ive read the flushing threads, about synthetics, Amsoil etc.

My opinion is let sleeping dogs lie as much as possible with older automatic trannies especially on these. I think using whatever has been used is a good idea, I assume its Mercon non-synthetic. I have no records of an ATF/filter change and it doesn't look red, it looks old. So I'm thinking of changing the filter and fluid and then opting for a complete flush with good Mercon...Not synthetic. I was talking to a mechanic today and he said they had done some flushes with different fluid and/or made minor changes and the vehicles wouldn't even move afterwards...the moral being....even minor changes had big consequences. If it wurkz dont fix it.

So I don't ramble any further....is this a plan? Would switching to synthetic at this point be risky? Would flushing it even upset it? I want the fluid to be clean but I don't don't want to upset my new/old tranny.

Thanks.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! I would suggest dropping the pan, and replacing the filter, and fluid with synthetic ATF. There is only harm done if the old fluid is dirty, which eventually creates clogs.

 

[TWalker]

Ok Thanks thats on my list tomorrow.

 

[Glacier991]

Hold on..... I have never really settled into a definite position on this, but there is some body of information suggesting that a rapid change to new fluid may accelerate the loosening of old deposited crud in the transmission, which later clogs up things.

If I had no clue as to the history here's what I'd do. I'd drop the pan, replace the filter, put in a drain plug ($5) and put 'er back together and refill the transmission to the proper level (probably 4-5 quarts.) Then I'd run it a month. I'd drain the pan and put the plug back in and repeat that process in a month. I'd do this 2 more times in the same time intervals, then for the last one drop the pan and replace the filter. I think that may be overkill but should greatly minimize the chance that your sudden ATF change causes a problem.

 

[BrooklynBay]

It might be a good idea to put in an external filter too. This should catch whatever the internal one doesn't.

 

[TWalker]

Cool..... thanks.

I don't know why I dont get notification of my subscribed threads. I had lost track of this one...

Thanks

 

[BrooklynBay]

You could either set up a thread to email you when somebody posts a new comment, or you could just click on the user control panel which is the second from the left on the top of the screen to see your subscribed threads.