One of the most common questions we receive is how much for a transmission flush? Having specialized in nothing but driveline repair for 25 years we DO NOT recommend ever flushing a transmission. Why you might ask?

All too often we receive calls from the customer bringing their vehicle into a shop, being sold a transmission flush, and then having issues quickly or even immediately after the flush. We have even heard stories of the customer not being able to drive the vehicle off the lot because the transmission is having so many issues. They call assuming the shop messed up the service and asking us to verify that. The unfortunate part, you can’t hold the shop liable for performing the flush that caused these issues because they correctly performed the flush and could not know for certain it would cause a failure.

You may be asking yourself why this happens?! How could a shop sell you a service that should be preventative maintenance that then causes it to have failures? To answer this question you need some background information. Transmissions operate off of frictions plates and hydraulic oil pressure, such as clutch packs. These clutch packs naturally shed some of this material in normal operation; we call this “normal wear” in the industry. The purpose of the filter is to catch this material and store it. When flushing the transmission this material can wind up stuck in the valve body or somewhere else inside the transmission. This means it will need to be rebuilt to correct this issue; your 50 dollar flush is now a few thousand dollar repair.

So what do we recommend? A simple transmission service. This means dropping the pan, inspecting it, allowing the fluid to drain, and replacing the filter with a new one, a new pan gasket, and filling it up with fresh fluid. The price to do this ranges from $125 to 250; depending on the vehicle. If you would like more information about this feel free to five us a call at 303-733-8494.

Customer service is our main goal and we hate hearing these stories from new or old customers! While it might t be more expensive for a service, it will not cause the damage that flushing can.

Below is a picture of a typical valve body – these parts have such a tight tolerance something the size of a human hair can stick a valve!