Ford Ranger Forum - Forums for Ford Ranger enthusiasts!

Yeah my wife's 2010 HHR is not due for a Transmission service until 100K.

Even at 100K they only recommend changing the fluid and do not mention the filter.

at 60K I started getting nervous and called GM and got a price quote of $350 dollars to do a service with a filter.

The transmission in the HHR is completely sealed and cannot even have the fluid level checked properly unless you have a 4 post lift.

As far as your truck is concerned, I would inspect the color and smell of the fluid.

If it was my truck I would change the fluid is it has any brownish tint to the fluid or smells even slightly burnt.

If it still smells and looks like new OEM transmission fluid go by your instinct and budget.

Where you have this service done is as important as when you do it.

Modern Automatic transmissions are expensive if it is serviced improperly you could being doing more harm than good.

My Dad was a transmission mechanic for many years a few of the things he taught me
even back in the dad before computer controlled Transmissions was to never use RTV on a gasket and never wipe the transmission pan dry with a shop towel.

and the environment that its being serviced in is very important.

If the shop is a pig sty with dirt and dust everywhere along with oil absorbent everywhere that is not the shop to do the work.

He pointed out at just one piece of lint or is all it takes to gum up a valve in the valve body.

So if you do it yourself make sure to have a clean environment.

If your paying your hard earned money to a shop for this work, do not pay to put your transmission in harms way.

All it takes is a quick look in their service bays to know what kind of environment your truck will be in.

In my opinion with shop labor rates at north of 100 dollars in places you deserve to have quality technicians whom take pride in their work and the environment that they work in.

An example of this, while I was working at Schumacher Automotive a Multi brand Dealership the shop was a pig sty, because of the employee turn around and the fact you only got to choose a free bay to work from in a certain section depending on the type of work you did. You could have your bay clean but the jerk next to you was allowed to be a slob.

At West Palm Mitsubishi after and during each job in some cases it was mandatory you kept the painted floors perfectly clean.

We had a fish bowl type shop there where the customers could look in and view the entire service area.

You could be the best ASE certified tech yet if you didn't keep your bay clean you would get hounded by other mechanics or the service manager until you straightened up quit or got fired.

They took cleanliness to the extreme. after all we worked on Brand new cars like Schumacher yet we counted on bonuses from positive customer satisfaction surveys

A bad survey cost the Company and the techs lots of Money.

So we had no choice but to do the job right without messing up anything.

Point here is the shop you take it to cannot be too clean.

Other work that you get done you could be more flexible.