# 2017 Cruze LS never serviced transmission fluid



## Johnny B (Jun 4, 2019)

Well, first of all the mileage isn't bad.

The shop method sounds good, if they perform it properly. And that, is the rub.. I do drain and fills myself. 
That said, the shop method would actually be better. What they will probably do is hook up to the transmission cooler lines. And take the inlet fluid and collect it. And feed in new fluid to the outlet. And the fluid is moved by the transmission internal pump. 

Any process can be messed up, I would look for some kind of work guarantee.


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## Barry Allen (Apr 18, 2018)

0xaiym said:


> I emailed a local transmission shop and the owner mentioned they use a fluid transfusion system which uses the transmissions pump to evacuate 100% of the fluid passively, while introducing new fluid on the return side of the circulation system - the method he described claiming zero damage to the transmission.


This is best and what I did many years ago working in a quick lube shop.

Our "machine" was just a cart with a huge plexiglass cylinder and a free-floating piston inside it. We had a huge tank of bulk transmission fluid and used a pump (ran off the shop compressed air mains) that would fill the cylinder with something like 4-5 gallons of transmission fluid. Then, we would find the lines going to/from the transmission cooler on the vehicle and hook that up to the machine so the output from the transmission was going to the bottom of the cylinder and the input was attached to the flow out of the top of the cylinder. Start the car and you could watch the piston slowly move up in the cylinder where the bottom filled up with nasty, dark, used transmission fluid and the fresh stuff was flowing into the transmission to be pumped through everything. Once the piston reached the top of the cylinder, shut the engine off and hook everything back up on the car. Then, start the car and let it idle to work any air bubbles out and check the dipstick. The transmissions were always a bit low after the fluid change so we topped them off once the fluid warmed up and got any air bubbles burped out of the system. Also, some Hondas needed an "additive package" that we had in little bottles so we would first pour that into the transmission to run for a while and then check to see if it needed topped off. The large cylinder was then refilled with fresh transmission fluid for the next job and the old stuff pumped out went into the waste oil tank for the truck to come pick up once a month or whenever.

Use something like that and the only pressure flushing through the transmission is the line pressure that the transmission itself creates. It's literally impossible to put too much pressure through it and break anything that way.


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## Doug225 (Jul 16, 2018)

When you take your cruze to a chevy dealer, what exactly do they do?


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## Barry Allen (Apr 18, 2018)

Doug225 said:


> When you take your cruze to a chevy dealer, what exactly do they do?


People take their Cruze to a Chevy dealership for a transmission fluid flush?!

Second hot take: "They charge 3x as much."


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## Jimster480 (11 mo ago)

Doug225 said:


> When you take your cruze to a chevy dealer, what exactly do they do?


They would do the fluid pump flushing method typically.


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## Jimster480 (11 mo ago)

Barry Allen said:


> People take their Cruze to a Chevy dealership for a transmission fluid flush?!
> 
> Second hot take: "They charge 3x as much."


Dealers do charge a ton, best to either do it yourself or find a good shop that can do it for you.


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## 0xaiym (3 mo ago)

@Johnny B Thank you for the insight. I’ll make sure to take what you say in consideration when making a selection.

@Barry Allen Amazing, thank you for sharing your personal experience. 

@Doug225 Perhaps for better or for worse, I have not seemed to need to visit the dealer for anything since I’ve purchased the vehicle. Oil changes, tires/brakes, other minor servicing I would purchase from Costco/Canadian Tire and local auto shop for oil changes. I realize there is possibility that I am completely glossing over something(s) which I DO need to visit my dealership for, however I have not yet found anything requiring me to do so. I have really only contacted my dealership with odd insignificant questions a few times. If, in your experience, there are certain situations in which you rely on your dealer, I’d be appreciative of you sharing those with me. 

@Jimster480 Absolutely, honestly speaking I have mostly been looking for solutions for my servicing needs outside of the dealership due to shopping for prices and simply because I currently lack the know-how and tools to properly do it myself.

In conclusion, with the help from your insights, I will be reaching out to the transmission shop I originally mentioned in the original post to receive the described fluid transfusion process. They have great reviews on Google and the shop owner seems very responsible and agreeable, offering me to call him on his cell to get info and book. Thank you all.


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## Barry Allen (Apr 18, 2018)

0xaiym said:


> Amazing, thank you for sharing your personal experience.


I googled a bit and I found a picture. It was exactly like this machine:










This one appears to have an electric pump, and I think that's for draining the old fluid (pumps it out into waste disposal). It's been long enough that the one we used at the shop I worked at _MIGHT_ have had an electric pump, but I don't recall ever using it. Our bulk transmission fluid tank had an air-powered pump that would push fresh transmission fluid into the top feed and that would push all the old fluid out the bottom feed.


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## Iamantman (Sep 24, 2018)

Yeah we had a machine similar to that when I was a tech at the dealer. 

The big question I have now is being that our cars don't have a dipstick and take a bit more work checking the fluid (proper temp, through the sidewall, open the plug) I do wonder how many techs are actually checking the level after a machine service on these cars vs traditional dipstick setups. It'd just be so easy to run the machine and ship it and save 20-30 min per job.


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