Certified Transmissions

As with most cars, routine maintenance is crucial to long-term performance. It’s recommended to change your automatic transmission fluid every 15,000 miles or every other year.

Heat causes the majority of damage to transmissions and can be caused by old transmission fluid, excessive braking and accelerating in hot weather, towing trailers, and damage to other parts of your car’s system. Experts recommend that with severe use of your car – defined as using your car in heavy city traffic and at temperatures over 90 F more than 50% of your driving time – you should have the filter and fluid changed every 15,000 miles. If you use your car less than that, or in cooler weather, the recommended maintenance is usually between 25,000 and 60,000 miles. Your car manual or your dealership will be able to tell you the optimum number for your vehicle.

Automatic transmissions have a neat feature called overdrive. The overdrive essentially reduces the stress on your engine and gear system. You won’t need to turn on the overdrive – in the majority of automatic cars it’s already turned on – but you may have to turn it off every now and then when you’re towing something. Turning the overdrive off will increase your torque and your engine’s RPM, but having it off constantly will put excess strain on your transmission, causing it to break down faster. Turning the overdrive off when towing something, however, will help to decrease the excess heat the transmission develops due to the added weight. If you tow frequently, especially heavy loads, you may want to look into installing an extra transmission fluid cooler into your car.

As with all transmission maintenance, keeping your transmission fluid clean and topped-up will help prevent transmission slip, but you can also prevent it by taking care when shifting gears. You should be at a full stop before switching to Reverse or Park, and if possible, shifting to Park or Neutral when stationary will help reduce the strain on your transmission.

Happy Fourth of July from all of us at Certified Tranmissions!!