Chevrolet Aveo automatic transmission flush. AW81-40LE

[blueveo]

I meant to post this how to last year when I bought my 2009 Aveo. I was very busy with school and forgot all about it. I know a few people on this forum have had issues with their transmissions. I believe preventative maintenance is the best policy so I service all my cars transmissions every 30k. The link below is to my blog where I posted the tutorial with pictures. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Joshua of all Trades. Master of Some.: Chevrolet Aveo transmission flush. AW81-40LE

[avguy]

Very nice comprehensive job and write-up! Personally I'm not a big fan of fluid transfers such as this (any mistake during the job could croak the tranny), and prefer to just swap 2 quarts every other oil change, and a filter swap every 75K or so. I believe this maintains good ongoing fluid quality. If I ever see an expert source clearly show by example that swaps like this aren't good enough, I'll start doing the transfers.
But for anyone who wants to do a transfer, you've provided them with a really good tutorial

[Thymeclock]

Very nice comprehensive job and write-up! Personally I'm not a big fan of fluid transfers such as this (any mistake during the job could croak the tranny), and prefer to just swap 2 quarts every other oil change, and a filter swap every 75K or so. I believe this maintains good ongoing fluid quality. If I ever see an expert source clearly show by example that swaps like this aren't good enough, I'll start doing the transfers.
But for anyone who wants to do a transfer, you've provided them with a really good tutorial

You couldn't pay me enough to have the car's front end jacked up and running with the tranny engaged and the wheels spinning. But I'm glad it worked for you. As for me, I'll stick with the passive transfusion method. IMHO it's just easier and less risky.

[2010AveoLT]

You couldn't pay me enough to have the car's front end jacked up and running with the tranny engaged and the wheels spinning. But I'm glad it worked for you. As for me, I'll stick with the passive transfusion method. IMHO it's just easier and less risky.

I think you missed the part where he said:

Have a helper start the car and shift through each gear for about 30 seconds per gear.

even though he says to keep the wheels away from the ground and from any tools lying around, the helper will likely have their foot on the brake (because of the Brake to Shift Interlock System) as they cycle through the different gear selections, which is causing the new fluid to work its way through all of those dizzying Valve Body Passages, and forcing all the old fluid to the cooler line come Drain.

[blueveo]

I think you missed the part where he said:



even though he says to keep the wheels away from the ground and from any tools lying around, the helper will likely have their foot on the brake (because of the Brake to Shift Interlock System) as they cycle through the different gear selections, which is causing the new fluid to work its way through all of those dizzying Valve Body Passages, and forcing all the old fluid to the cooler line come Drain.

Yes you are correct. The wheels will be barely moving if at all. The idea is to push the old fluid out by using the transmission pump instead of an expensive fluid exchange machine. You can leave the car in park or neutral and the pump will still run if it makes you feel safer. I can not take credit for the idea, I found it in a Mitsubishi service manual while I was working on an Outlander a few years ago. I just adopted the procedure for the Aveo. When I bough my Aveo used the fluid looked nasty. A 2 quart exchange would not have been enough for me.

I used to just change the filter and the fluid in the pan, but you only remove a small amount of fluid. For our cars this is around 2 quarts, other this can be 6 quarts. You can choose to do serial dilutions like avguy, but this procedure removes most of the fluid at one time. Lucky for us the Aveo has a drain plug as most other auto trans do not. I do have a fluid evacuation machine I use to remove the fluid from cars with out drain plugs via the dip tube, but again this only removes what is in the pan not what is in the rest of the transmission and the cooler lines. You can have the same procedure done at a dealer or trans shop if you are not comfortable with it. I was quoted $260 by my local dealer.

If you ask 10 mechanics you will get 10 different opinions. I expected some controversy. I have done quite a bit of transmission work as a shade tree mechanic. Some people feel 30k intervals are to frequent, I feel its cheap insurance, for less than $50 in parts and one hour of my time. I was taking with the owner of a very large respectable shop in my area one day and he said one of the biggest issues he has seen with cars today is fluid breakdown and contamination. People don't service their brake fluid, coolant, power steering fluid ect. These fluid don't last forever.

My goal was to give back a little to the Aveo community. I have learned a lot about our little cars from others on this forum so I though I would share some of my work.