| Subject: | If It Ain't Broken.... |
| Question: | My husband is so thrilled
with having gotten a 1994 Mitsubishi 3000GT, his love of the
car might have caused a real costly problem for him though, I
hope you can shed some light on this topic. He decided, out of the clear blue sky that it would be a good thing to have the fluid in his automatic transmission changed and so took it to a local shop that specializes in nothing in particular. They did a fluid change on the cars tranny fluid and ever since then the car had signifigcant problems within the transmission. First it was "first gear" acting all wierd, during "1st" gear-both accelerating and while slowing down, it lurches and stutters, definitely not the smooth action it had prior to this service. So he took it back to them and they re-did the change, but the same only worse performance followed and he decided to take it to someone else who said that the fluid level was almost a full quart over according to the dipstick. So at that point he went and had a quart drained out of it, but the trouble persists and the car is running even worse. I have a couple questions. First obviously, do you have any idea what happened to his car? Next, is it possible that there is a specific type of tranny fluid for 3000gt's and the like and using another type of fluid screwed it up, if so what is the remedy and what is likely to have been damaged internallly in the transmission? Also, is it possible that the fluid should have been left alone and that the consitency of the new stuff was somehow out of sync with the gears? I really appreciate your being available to ask these things. I'm planning on arranging for him to have it serviced at the Mitsubishi dealer and I trust them to know what the trouble is, but since I have worked for dealerships I also know that they may not want to tell him for a few hundred, maybe even more dollars....... So if you can give me a little bit of education, it'll help me field whatever bs they might want to sell us. Thank yo so much, I hope this email finds you well! Kelly |
| Answer: | Kelly, I believe you had written me about this problem a few weeks ago. As I mentioned before, there really isn't much you can screw up when doing a tranny fluid change. Unfortunately, those general service garages have very limited knowledge of high performance Japanese sports cars. The 3000GT trannies are very particular and require very specific fluid. If the old fluid is not completely drained, and the new fluid is added, that can cause problems. For a car of that age, a good garage would take off the transmission housing and completely clean the inside of it. The reason that should be done is because little metal shavings build up in the transmission oil pan. When the oil is merely drained and new fluid added, those shavings may not drain out. In fact, that may knock them loose from the walls of the housing, and now they are "flying" around the fluid. For there to be an entire quart more fluid in the transmission case is incredible. Those trannies only require about 3 quarts, so an extra means that garage pays no attention to your husband's car's specification. As far as that 'ruining' the transmission, I don't think that would happen. But it would indeed run poorly as you described. Plus, I believe that garage put the wrong type of fluid in the car. You should boycott that garage and inform friends not to go to that garage. A Mitsubishi dealership will know exactly how to do the tranny
fluid change and they will use the correct fluid. At this
point, you may just want to ask the dealership to do a complete
transmission fluid change. Tell them that you would like
them clean out the transmission housing before adding new
fluid. Don't tell them that you are having any transmission
problems yet. If his transmission is still acting up after
Mitsubishi performs that fluid change, you may want to go
back and tell them there's a problem. It's possible they
will take the blame for poor performance and diagnose the
problem for free. As far a fixing a problem, that will be
costly. IF that dealership fixes that transmission, I would
estimate at least $600 parts and labor (but most of that
is labor). |