Trany fluid change question

I own a 2005 Elantra and need a tranmission oil change at 60,000
miles.

My question is what is necessary to maintain the 100,000 miles
warantee? I have conflicting information.

1. Drain and fill?

2. Drain and fill and disconnect the line to the radiator?

3. Drop the pan, clean/replace the filter if there is one there that
is accesable. Some one told me it is not accesable for the
average home mechanic.

4. Have a power flush performed?

I prefer to do the minimum that keeps the warantee valid and that
would be a drain and fill. I will be keeping the car for 100,000
miles but not for much more.

Where can I purchase SPIII other than from the dealer. Can a parts
store such as Autozone or others special order the fluid and if so
what brand would you recomend. Is the fluid from a KIA dealer cheeper
than from a Hyndai dealer and is it the same and acceptable to use?

Comments welcome.

 

**HyundaiTech has reported in the past that a "drain and refill" is always
considered a proper servicing to maintain the warranty - if the right fluid
is used;

**SPIII (now becoming SPIV) is a Mitsubishi fluid. By their own admission,
marketing for it failed miserably. HT recommends you buy ONLY that fluid.
And I do agree, at least to the extent to NEVER put any kind of Dexron-based
fluid (the most common) in your Hyundai

**That said, oil companies like Castrol are starting to market a special
IMPORT Multi - Vehicle ATF. It was the first fluid to specifically list
being compatible with Mitsubishi SPIII. That is what you would find at a
store like Auto Zone. In fact, it is on sale at Auto Zone this month. If
you buy this, make sure it says IMPORT and not DOMESTIC.

**If you do decide to play it safe and get SPIII fluid, the dealer is your
only bet. But prices vary greatly, and the car dealer's brand (Kia,
Mitsubishi, Hyundai) seems to have no relation to price, at least not in my
experience/

 

Down here, the fluid was half as much at the Kia dealership than at
the Hyundai dealerships. I say this not to disagree, but to encourage
comparison shopping

 

The 2002 2.7 Sonata LX I bought was serviced at 92KMi 18 months
ago. The receipt the owner gave me states:
============================================================
TRANSMISSION FLUSH W SYNTHETIC FLUID

BG synthetic ATF 4 gal $61.41
INSTALL cleaner to suspend harmful varnish and sludge, and
completely flush out old fluid and contaminates from the valve
body, torque converter, and cooler lines, refilling with
new fluid $53.67

Trans flush kit $24.91
============================================================
So....my transmission seems to work fine. I'm wondering why the
guy I bought the car from paid $139.99 for the transmission
service...and if they used the correct fluid... and if not if the
past 11KMi with the wrong fluid has damaged the tranny. Most of
the the last year it has sat in my driveway and has not been driven.

I asked at NAPA about the SPIII fluid, and the guy tried to sell
me some "anti-friction" additive that he said would "convert" the
ATF. I took a pass.

I'm thinking I need to change the fluid just to be sure. Is
draining it OK, or do I need to try and get all the fluid out? Is
there anything else I should service on the tranny? I'm willing
to pay for the SPIII, it's cheaper than a new tranny. I will shop
around, though.

 

A drain-and-fill only replaces about half the fluid. You'll want to
hear from someone more expert than me about what percentage is really
safe. (Any tribological experts out there know?)

In my case, the guy drain-and-filled with what I later found was the
wrong fluid, so I freaked out and did two drain-and-fills of my own
with actual SP-III fluid. The math says:

Initial Composition: 100% worn SP-III
After Luis Transmission (Convoy St., San Diego) exercised their
incompetence: 50% worn SP-III, 50% Dexron/Mercon
After 1 drain-n-fill: 50% new SP-III, 25% worn SP-III, 25% Dexron/
Mercon
After 2nd drain-n-fill: 75% new SP-III, 12.5% worn SP-III, 12.5%
Dexron/Mercon

So maybe I'm slowly ruining my transmission .... but at least it's a
relatively small percent. I've noticed no ill effects in the 20K miles
or so since then.

If they used Dexron/Mercon to flush your transmission, and if my
assumption that 12.5% is a low enough percentage to be safe, you could
fix it with 3 drain-n-fill-drive cycles.

Or you could call dealerships, verify that they use SP-III in their
service (NOT a safe assumption, trust me
*cough*KerneyMesaHyundai*cough*!), and get a full flush.

Good luck!

 

Unless you have something different in your manual than I've seen recently
you don't need to do anything. Any recent manual I've seen says ATF need
to be changed at 105k

 

"TRANSMISSION FLUSH W SYNTHETIC FLUID

BG synthetic ATF 4 gal $61.41
INSTALL cleaner to suspend harmful varnish and sludge, and completel
flush out old fluid and contaminates from the valve body, torqu
converter, and cooler lines, refilling with
new fluid $53.67

Trans flush kit $24.91"


If this were my car, I'd *flush* it with SP-III fluid unless BG Product
is willing to guarantee my transmission in the event Hyundai refuses t
pay for it. I don't know what BG synthetic ATF 4 is (suspect it specs ou
as Mopar ATF+4), but it's not SP-III. It may be one of thos
meets-many-specs fluids, but I doubt their claims as well. Differen
fluids have different friction properties. More (or less) friction isn'
necessarily better, it's just different.

 

How in the world can that BG fluid be used in absolutely any auto
transmission? At least that's what BG claims:
http://www.bgprod.com/products/transmission.html

The funny thing is that both the local Kia and Hyundai dealers use it
instead of SP III.

 

Hmm. Interesting information. As an update, I went through the
service records again, and I realized that the ATF was actually
replaced at 30K, same place, same fluid. So actually, the car has
been driven for about 4 years and 73K with this BG fluid.