Costal_Cat
Member
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2017
- Posts
- 85
- Reaction score
- 84
Hi all,
A little background
2012 Yukon Denali XL about 130 k and some change.
Lots of highway driving and towing of my travel trailer and boat
When I got the Truck with around 80,000-mile Transmission Fluid looked pretty good, which I was ok with as I would rather it look decent than cherry red as if someone just changed it.
Drove it that way for about 25,000 miles no issues, Tranny temp on a super hot South East day on I95 might have gotten to 210 at its worst. When we evacuated from NC during Florance it was a little crazy in that I was out of town on business flew in and turned around the kids, dogs, truck, trailer, and the second car in about 4 hours and hit the road. Needless to say, I was not as detailed oriented as usual when loading the trailer and truck and it probably had a little more weight than usual and probably not distributed as well as it usually is. That night I noticed both the tranny and water temp were higher than usual not crazy high just out of its normal range. We stopped to camp for the night I checked both cooling, and tranny fluid and both needed a little, so I topped them off. The next day was a nightmare of a drive on i95 south what usually took 2.5 hours to get through SC took 5, and it was hot weather wise. Once in Georgia, I transferred one of the kids and dogs to the wife's car and told them to meet me in Orlando because of the temps I planned to ride with no AC on the windows down because it seemed like that kept the temps in a more normal area. Once we got put in Florida, I got a shop that had excellent reviews to check out the truck. He said thermostat was good and the tranny fluid did not look bad, but he would recommend to just change the filter and add back what is required when doing a change, which is what I would do. He did note that the fluid was darker than he expected, but the magnet was fine when he did change it so just keep an eye on things. After that, it drove a lot better temps were back to normal, and I have probably put 6-7,000 miles on it since towing and such with no issues
After this last trip, it was during that little Feb heat wave and the temps were climbing a little higher than normal, hit 212 -215 once and the fluid is looking a little worse for the wear but not burnt by any means.
So now the question, I was going to do a complete fluid change today in the driveway. Pull the transmission line at the radiator dump about 6-7 quarts out using that method.. . Note I have no transmission issues, but I tow a lot, and I know that if the fluid is not changed, it will certainly get to be an issue. I have read a million opinions of the good and bad of changing out fluid, so I was not going to run it through until I see a good red color I was merely going to pull some out and replace.
Any thoughts on this? Should I run a complete change? I have three gallons of fluid sitting here in the garage and could do so or should I just dump 4-6 quarts and replace?
TIA
A little background
2012 Yukon Denali XL about 130 k and some change.
Lots of highway driving and towing of my travel trailer and boat
When I got the Truck with around 80,000-mile Transmission Fluid looked pretty good, which I was ok with as I would rather it look decent than cherry red as if someone just changed it.
Drove it that way for about 25,000 miles no issues, Tranny temp on a super hot South East day on I95 might have gotten to 210 at its worst. When we evacuated from NC during Florance it was a little crazy in that I was out of town on business flew in and turned around the kids, dogs, truck, trailer, and the second car in about 4 hours and hit the road. Needless to say, I was not as detailed oriented as usual when loading the trailer and truck and it probably had a little more weight than usual and probably not distributed as well as it usually is. That night I noticed both the tranny and water temp were higher than usual not crazy high just out of its normal range. We stopped to camp for the night I checked both cooling, and tranny fluid and both needed a little, so I topped them off. The next day was a nightmare of a drive on i95 south what usually took 2.5 hours to get through SC took 5, and it was hot weather wise. Once in Georgia, I transferred one of the kids and dogs to the wife's car and told them to meet me in Orlando because of the temps I planned to ride with no AC on the windows down because it seemed like that kept the temps in a more normal area. Once we got put in Florida, I got a shop that had excellent reviews to check out the truck. He said thermostat was good and the tranny fluid did not look bad, but he would recommend to just change the filter and add back what is required when doing a change, which is what I would do. He did note that the fluid was darker than he expected, but the magnet was fine when he did change it so just keep an eye on things. After that, it drove a lot better temps were back to normal, and I have probably put 6-7,000 miles on it since towing and such with no issues
After this last trip, it was during that little Feb heat wave and the temps were climbing a little higher than normal, hit 212 -215 once and the fluid is looking a little worse for the wear but not burnt by any means.
So now the question, I was going to do a complete fluid change today in the driveway. Pull the transmission line at the radiator dump about 6-7 quarts out using that method.. . Note I have no transmission issues, but I tow a lot, and I know that if the fluid is not changed, it will certainly get to be an issue. I have read a million opinions of the good and bad of changing out fluid, so I was not going to run it through until I see a good red color I was merely going to pull some out and replace.
Any thoughts on this? Should I run a complete change? I have three gallons of fluid sitting here in the garage and could do so or should I just dump 4-6 quarts and replace?
TIA
