godam slushbox

HERE'S THE THING... Everybody talks about the old days when things were simpler. You could count on things to work until you were done with them or fix them simply with available parts. But really, what is wrong with that assumption?

Now I know some will say the automatic transmission predates even some of the long standing manual units. But thinking ahead of its time may still put it in the same category, and not prove it's worth.

Me I would rather row through gears across the river Styx before ever entering into another relationship with an automatic transmission. To my way of thinking it is just another overly complex component that will one day cancel the value of a fully depreciated vehicle.

Prove me wrong, how many have had exceptional mileage on the A340 transmissions without incident? How many have experience with the longevity of both and found equality?

I ask this because never in my minitruck'n years have experienced a failure with a MT that wasn't clutch related whereas just have with my first and only AT and have heard similar.

You can barely find a modern vehicle in production with a MT. If more consumers learned the art of the third pedal and put down their cell phones It would truly make America great again.

 

This is a well worded and punctuated paragraph for 3:13 in the morning....

 

That's my best hour man.

 

OK, so to be fair... my 2002 A340 truck has been abused, even before I met it. It came to me as a 3 year old repaired salvage with 30k. It had been in a major accident which buckled the front end and deployed the airbags. Later I found it actually pushed the engine into the firewall and cracked the hvac ducts under the dash so that duct tape and old socks had to be employed. It has never been alignable, chews up tires, leaks rain and has a seep in the trans cooler hard-line.

After 12 years running this thing with little love for the auto, it is complaining. It still shifts and drives fine, but the trans overheats on the highway, burns up fluid and shows the P0770 code. I am still looking to fix it before it grenades but feel like I've gotten my usage out of it. Just hard to give up on this POS as it has been otherwise indestructible. If it were a manual I would probably not even be on here.

I just bought a 2000 with a manual and will probably put this one out to pasture but still feel a little bad about it. If folks are getting 300k out of these with proper maintenance maybe I'll fix or replace the damn thing.

I guess the point of this thread was to see how many casually maintained A340's there were out there with high mileage. Could be interesting...

 

So it hasn't been well maintained and is most likely low on fluid...

 

We have a guy here with a second gen with the 5 speed auto (a750) which is similar to the old a340, he had almost 600k miles when he sold it. It still had the original automatic transmission, I believe he said the transmission had been serviced twice by the dealer. Granted highway miles aren't as hard on a transmission as stop and go and short trips, 600k is an impressive run out of it regardless.

 

It's not low NOW, and hasn't been for as long as I've run it. I was always aware that it 'seeped' from some mysterious location and checked it religiously. It did however overheat while driving back across country and I discovered that it was down a quart. After I got home I installed a cooler and gave it a full transfusion with maxlife. After that it smoked the fluid in 160 miles on the highway.

 

Still, a quart in 12 shouldn't make or break anything in the short term. This was a love/hate relationship with this truck so yes the intervals for drain and fills were exceeded. There's a lot of black shit in the fluid after the last episode with the A/T light coming on. I should probably have not done the flush and just let it go in zombie mode for a while.

 

Definitely like that 600k story though, maybe I'll go ahead and throw a junkyard unit in there or fix this one. It's pretty much unsaleable as a salvage anyway so I'd like to keep running it.

 

My philosophy is that if a flush kills it, it wasn't gonna make it long anyways. If it cooked the fluid that quick you've got something wrong: clutches are slipping, or the lockup clutch is slipping or not applying at all. Or something has clogged the cooler lines or cooler circuit.

 

Pretty sure its torque converter clutch that's slipping, overheating. Tested the solenoid and it works, next will be looking at valve body, don't know if it's really worthwhile as opposed to maybe buying and installing a junkyard unit when I look at refurbishing valve body and then replacing torque converter. Seems all I've read about not messing with a neglected auto is proving accurate.

 

Anyway, shit, thought I could just romp on this thing forever. I mean all I ever did with my manuals was observe the cutout point and not ride the clutch, MAYYBEE change the fluid in 200k. What's with these damn things?

 

P0770

2008 Tacoma 4X4 still going strong

 

Sometimes a clogged filter can make them act up, I think these only have a screen, but I have seen the screen clog on a few Lexus suvs before.

 

This one looks like it might never need changed with the proper fluid changes, as I've read. The pan when I dropped it had some sludge and some fine metal but no sign of major failure. Diagnostics have pointed me to a torque converter malfunction, probably because of excess wear in the valve body and loss of hydraulic pressure.

 

You gotta figure on long maintenance intervals though, why even own a toyota otherwise. Should have stayed with my '85, The infidels corrupted this vehicle with their sloth.

 

@gearcruncher thoughts?

 

I didn't realize you had dropped the pan. Most people say they never need changing, and with proper fluid change intervals that may be true. Like I said, I have seen them clog a few times, definitely not a common occourance though. I'll probably drop the pan on my 07 at around 100k and inspect the screen at least.... if I keep it that long. I do have a remote filter mount and spin on filter plumbed into the cooler lines on mine. I'm hoping to keep the contaminants low and hopefully get a long life out of it. I try to maintain it like I'm aiming to drive it forever...then if for some reason I can't afford to trade vehicles or life happens... you know, whatever... it'll still be in good shape if I need to keep it.

 

I should have dropped the pan earlier but couldn't get the damn thing to budge. I was setting out so left it for later after installing an aux cooler and flushing with synthetic. When I did resolve to get at the solenoid it wasn't all that bad - just had to hammer a flathead in there from various angles. Would have been interesting to see what was in there before the flush. These things are just a big expensive mystery to me. From what I'm getting here you should form a very intimate relationship with them early on, make sure they have the best treatment, libations, etc.