Trans fluid question.....

[Plus 3 Golfer]

Originally Posted by tdi_mt

I am familiar with atf fluid flushing in concept - is it easy to do on an 04 passat ?
I'm at 70K miles and have the fluid/filter/gasket from impex and was looking for a how-to .

Yes, I have read the how to change the fluid and filter in the pan but I wanted to get more of the other 10 Ls or so.

thankx

Flushing the transmission requires that the transmission cooling lines be connected to a machine like the pic below. I don't think you want to disconnect the cooling lines and crank the engine to pump the fluid out although I know some with gassers have done it and created quite a mess. I believe they dropped / drained and filled, momentarily cranked (with fuel pump fuse pulled on the gasser) as ATF was pumped out, filled, cranked, and repeated until the new fluid came out the cooling line.

I've performed the pan drop / drain / fill and just the drain and fill many times on my B5. This is the plan I would use on your transmission with 70k miles on it to get virtually all the old fluid out at about 100k miles:

1) Pan drop, filter change, and fill with about 5+ liters which leaves 4 liters of old ATF in transmission. (new ATF > 56%)
2) After 5k miles, drain and fill - about 4+ liters (newer ATF now > 75%
3) After 10k miles, drain and fill - about 4+ liters (newer ATF now > 86%)
4) After 15k miles, drain and fill - about 4+ liters (newer ATF now > 92 %)

I would then do a drain and fill every 20k miles thereafter throwing in a filter change every 60-80k miles.

When I drain and fill, I jack the rear up as high as possible and leave the front on the ground to drain as much ATF out as I can. I measure the amount drained out and pump that much back in. I only level the car and measure temperature when I do the pan drop to get the correct fill level to start with. The drain and fills take me less than 1/2 hour from setup to cleanup so it's really not much more time than an oil change.