Information on the automatic transmission at 60k miles

[VNT]

I had the ZF HP70 done on the wife's Grand Cherokee at 40K. I had scored some 24 qts of the Mopar ZF 8/9 spd fluid for 7$ a qt a few years ago. I also got a new pan/kit for cost at my local dealer and had my pal who is a tech do a pan drop and refill. Took 7 qts, still runs great. He saved the pan and fluid and it wasnt too bad.
There are 4 magnets in the pan and I assume the initial pan drop will have the most wear metals from break in. I have the lifetime max car on that one and my wife's Sahara.

Filter was over a 100$ dealer cost. No wonder the Germans lost the war, typical stupid engineering making everything simple more complex and costly!

Per the fluid, I am hoping some brave souls start using some fluids like Amsoil and Redline to see how the transmissions respond, but have been looking at various forums and most folks are sticking with either the Mopar ZF fluid or the fluid directly from ZF from various vendors. I assume no one wants warranty issues with other branded fluids and cant say I blame anyone for playing it safe.

For the record I use the Amsoil univeral ATF in my 46RE in my Durango and 545RFE in my 02 WJ. Have Redline c+ in my 40TE in my cruiser. Never have had any issues with any of them, did initial pan drop and cooler line flushes and filter replacement. now do drain and fills once in a while.

Good to know he 8HP50 in the Wranglers has a reusable pan with seperate filter.

Per the convertors, first I have heard of that problem, have not heard of a single failure save some units with valve body issues, my pal said they just dont see any ZF units come in other than a occasional valve body problem.

Sponsored

 

[mgroeger]

I think you hit on what he is saying. He is saying that the torque converter in this tranny is not properly sized and as such it engages and disengages more often. So if that is happening it will produce more debris than say a tranny that has a torque converter that does not engage/disengage as much.

 

[mgroeger]

Oh I also forgot to mention...
I looked at the box that the Mopar fluid was shipped in, sealed from the factory. It had an expiration date!!!??? Said it was made June 2020 and expires June 2024. WTH is that? I find it hard to believe that this fluid would degrade simply while sitting on a shelf. If it does then we are all F'd if we aren't doing very regular fluid swaps... lol.

 

[jessedacri]

I think you hit on what he is saying. He is saying that the torque converter in this tranny is not properly sized and as such it engages and disengages more often. So if that is happening it will produce more debris than say a tranny that has a torque converter that does not engage/disengage as much.

Hmm, I wonder if there are any preventative driving techniques or anything we can do knowing this. In my '16 Audi S5 with their twin clutch DSG trans, not letting the transmission "creep" as much as possible did wonders for the longevity of the clutch packs according to heavy users and performance shops who worked on DSGs. The trans automatically stopped its creep function when the brake pedal input was detected so that unlike a traditional torque converter automatic, it wouldn't be trying to creep even when your foot was on the brake, so many owners would go further and not play along with the creeping of traffic as much as possible. The idea being it was slipping a more traditional clutch at creep speed, so the idea was to either get it to ~7mph where the clutches were engaged, or stop and don't let it creep until there's space to get to the engagement point. Was a fun thing to worry about all the time - but an absolutely incredible transmission to drive when not in traffic.

All that being said, none of it is relative to this torque converter auto - but along those lines I wonder if there's anything the ZF doesn't like long-term.

 

[wv18jl]

"Shock the transmission" by putting clean fluid in it?

Wow ...

New fluid won't hurt anything.

It's just not necessary as long as system is sealed.

No other contamination.

This myth has been debunked for years.

 

[mgroeger]

"Shock the transmission" by putting clean fluid in it?

Wow ...

New fluid won't hurt anything.

It's just not necessary as long as system is sealed.

No other contamination.

This myth has been debunked for years.

Are you kidding me? Do you really think a sealed system never gets contaminated? The contamination that is being referred to is the wear and tear, metal shavings, clutch pack material that contaminates the fluid over time. We aren't talking acid rain, ozone and plastic straws that are contaminating the fluid.
A sealed system gets plenty contaminated. The myth that's being pushed is that there are "lifetime" transmissions that have lifetime fluid. That's the biggest crock out there.

And yes, you can shock a transmission with new fluid. Take a transmission that has 200k miles on it and has never been changed. Do a complete flush and put all new fluid in it and you will shock it. The shock comes from the fact that the transmission fluid is so used and contaminated with clutch pack material and wear material that is suspended in it. That material is the only thing giving grip to the clutch packs so if you remove all that dirty fluid and swap it out with clean fluid you will have an extremely high probability of sending the transmission into failure because the clutches will start to slip since there is reduced friction.

 

[mgroeger]

Just got it back and all is well with the world. In case anyone is interested when you do a pan drop 6qts. comes out. The only thing keeping me from doing this myself is you need a pump to put the fluid back in. There is no dipstick or even a dipstick tube, you need to connect to a port on the side of the tranny to pump the fluid back in. Freaking Germans and their over engineering.

 

[Bearded_Dragon]

Just got it back and all is well with the world. In case anyone is interested when you do a pan drop 6qts. comes out. The only thing keeping me from doing this myself is you need a pump to put the fluid back in. There is no dipstick or even a dipstick tube, you need to connect to a port on the side of the tranny to pump the fluid back in. Freaking Germans and their over engineering.

Great thread, thank you for posting it! Do you know on which side of the transmission the fill port is? Or have the filter part numbers?

On another note I have Mopar's Lifetime Warranty and I'm on the fence about changing fluid in this transmission. I plan on keeping the Jeep long term and I want to change it to Amsoil, however I'm afraid Mopar will try blaming any failure on the fact I changed fluid, used the "incorrect" fluid, or both.

 

[m3reno]

"Shock the transmission" by putting clean fluid in it?

Wow ...

New fluid won't hurt anything.

It's just not necessary as long as system is sealed.

No other contamination.

This myth has been debunked for years.

I read an article on the BMW site saying just to change the oil from the pan IF the oil changes were neglected, as cycling in new oil may stir up sludge or varnish build up and create other issues. So I think if you change the trans oil every 40 thousand miles you should be ok. I have a 2009 RAm that I bought new and the life expectancy for that trans with no cooler was 120,000-1400,00 if I kept the temps at 160-180. I installed an over sized cooler that came with the tow package and brought my temps down to 120-130 and my trans lasted me 255,000 miles. The install took five minutes as my lines were already there.

 

[2020Sport]

I read an article on the BMW site saying just to change the oil from the pan IF the oil changes were neglected, as cycling in new oil may stir up sludge or varnish build up and create other issues. So I think if you change the trans oil every 40 thousand miles you should be ok. I have a 2009 RAm that I bought new and the life expectancy for that trans with no cooler was 120,000-1400,00 if I kept the temps at 160-180. I installed an over sized cooler that came with the tow package and brought my temps down to 120-130 and my trans lasted me 255,000 miles. The install took five minutes as my lines were already there.

email Mopar Lifetime Warranty and tell them what you want to do. If they say using Amsoil will void a repair, email their response to Amsoil for guidance.

 

[mgroeger]

I read an article on the BMW site saying just to change the oil from the pan IF the oil changes were neglected, as cycling in new oil may stir up sludge or varnish build up and create other issues. So I think if you change the trans oil every 40 thousand miles you should be ok. I have a 2009 RAm that I bought new and the life expectancy for that trans with no cooler was 120,000-1400,00 if I kept the temps at 160-180. I installed an over sized cooler that came with the tow package and brought my temps down to 120-130 and my trans lasted me 255,000 miles. The install took five minutes as my lines were already there.

How often did you change the fluid?

 

[Revolution_322]

I thought I'd start a thread for those of us with the automatic tranny, specifically those of us who want to see a long life with it.
For starters you can throw out the FCA bull$hit about this being a lifetime transmission or it has lifetime transmission fluid in it or whatever they are spewing... it's not.
These are excellent trannys but they aren't without their problems. The transmission manufacturer recommends servicing the tranny by 60k miles and even if they didn't that's when I typically do my first service on a transmission.
I took it to a reputable, well known, locally owned transmission shop where I live. There was no way in the world I would go to a dealer for a tranny service. I want to go where all they do is transmission work and these guys are VERY familiar with this transmission. For those of you who don't know it's been around for quite awhile, it's simply new to the Wrangler.
For starters, on the Wrangler, you do not need to replace the entire transmission pan like on other vehicles with this transmission. On the Wrangler the filter is NOT built into the pan like on other models, it fits INTO the pan and therefore you only need the filter. The shop I took it to recommends NOT doing an entire fluid swap but only to change out the roughly 6qts of fluid that will drop with the pan. You run the risk of shocking the system by doing a full swap.
They dropped the pan and noted a fair amount of debris in the bottom of the pan and that is exactly what he expected to see. For as awesome as these trannys are, the torque converter is slightly undersized and consequently over worked and all of this produces more wear and debris in the fluid. There is nothing you can do about this except stay on top of fluid changes and understand that, based on their personal experience, the torque converters often need to be replaced around 100k to 120k. That isn't written in blood but he was just giving me the heads up.
The filters he had on hand would fit but were about 3/4" too short and he wanted to make sure I had the best coverage possible so he ordered a filter directly from a dealership for it and will button it up tomorrow. I said moving forward I plan on doing a fluid swap again at 90k and then at 120k and he said that is exactly what he would recommend.
The fluid on for this tranny is not cheap... up to $30 a qt. from the dealer but you can get it from Rock Auto for $20. I got 8 qts. shipped to my door for $188 which included tax and $9 shipping and even the guy at the shop was surprised at that price. I'll probably be into the shop for about $200 so you are looking at $400 for the service. Technically you probably could do it yourself if you buy an after market dipstick and are comfortable doing it yourself. I've done it plenty of times on other vehicles but since we wheel this hard, put a ton of miles on it and it's also a DD for my wife, I wanted the peace of mind of having a pro look at it.
I'll update the thread with any new info after I pick up the Jeep tomorrow.

This is just one mans professional opinion at one shop in america. There is always more than one way to do things. Also. Im calling bullshit on tq converter at 100k. Ive owned several jeeps into the 200k range and NEVER have a replaced a tq converter.

 

[mgroeger]

Great thread, thank you for posting it! Do you know on which side of the transmission the fill port is? Or have the filter part numbers?

On another note I have Mopar's Lifetime Warranty and I'm on the fence about changing fluid in this transmission. I plan on keeping the Jeep long term and I want to change it to Amsoil, however I'm afraid Mopar will try blaming any failure on the fact I changed fluid, used the "incorrect" fluid, or both.

I believe the fill port is on the passenger side and everything is accessed from underneath, they didn't even pop the hood.
I agree with what the other poster told you.

 

[CarbonSteel]

If a transmission fails after a fluid change, it was destined to fail anyway. New fluid does not cause failures, it removes the metal and inorganic contaminates and restores the fluid to its designed viscosity which is reduced over time due to shearing.

I have always changed the filter and fluid every 50K in vehicles which tow or are subjected to stressful operation and plan to do the same with my Rubicon.

Sponsored