I've had my Stinger for ~20k miles now and was looking into what others had done on the forums. Haven't seem much info between the trans and limited slip diff. After thinking about OEM "lifetime" fluids I figure I spend a few hard earned dollars and do a full (filter & fluid) service on our cars. If everything looked great I'll extend my next maintenance but if it didn't, I'll have peace of mind.
Now of course fluid color doesn't necessarily mean that it has gone bad but considering what I saw, very happy I performed this service early. I can't imagine what another 80k plus would look like. Posting pictures here in case anyone else was interested. For reference, ~75% of my driving is highway commuting. Used all OEM fluids.
Transmission: Old transmission pan, absolutely full of shimmer and glitter. Magnets had some fuzz as expected. The filter element is apparently a mesh-foam type material. Looked like that could get clogged much easier than a traditional screen. Could see this looking down into the vertical larger tube. Fluid was pretty dark but otherwise no surprises other than all the glitter which settled quickly in the bucket. Used about 8 qts to fully drain, flush new pan once, and then refill. Would highly recommend using one of the pressurized containers which screw into the level check drain plug. Seemed like the transmission fill plug had been loctite in place, was absolutely not able to get mine out. Ended up filling from the bottom like a lot of newer models are requiring. Also, the harsh downshifts were noticeably smoother after changing the fluid. We'll see how long it lasts but I was surprised.
Rear Differential: Cleaned off what seemed to be a reasonable amount of material from the drain plug magnet. Old fluid was very dark and full of glitter; was obvious when stirring the fluid around. Compared to the ease to do and minimal cost for ~1.5 qts of fluid, this is a no-brainer for me to replace every 20k moving forward. Zip tied a tube to a sealable bag and squeezed the new stuff into the fill plug. Interesting that the recommended amount (equal to amount drained) did not overflow the fill plug. So not sure its meant to be used as a level check in our case.
Now of course fluid color doesn't necessarily mean that it has gone bad but considering what I saw, very happy I performed this service early. I can't imagine what another 80k plus would look like. Posting pictures here in case anyone else was interested. For reference, ~75% of my driving is highway commuting. Used all OEM fluids.
Transmission: Old transmission pan, absolutely full of shimmer and glitter. Magnets had some fuzz as expected. The filter element is apparently a mesh-foam type material. Looked like that could get clogged much easier than a traditional screen. Could see this looking down into the vertical larger tube. Fluid was pretty dark but otherwise no surprises other than all the glitter which settled quickly in the bucket. Used about 8 qts to fully drain, flush new pan once, and then refill. Would highly recommend using one of the pressurized containers which screw into the level check drain plug. Seemed like the transmission fill plug had been loctite in place, was absolutely not able to get mine out. Ended up filling from the bottom like a lot of newer models are requiring. Also, the harsh downshifts were noticeably smoother after changing the fluid. We'll see how long it lasts but I was surprised.
Rear Differential: Cleaned off what seemed to be a reasonable amount of material from the drain plug magnet. Old fluid was very dark and full of glitter; was obvious when stirring the fluid around. Compared to the ease to do and minimal cost for ~1.5 qts of fluid, this is a no-brainer for me to replace every 20k moving forward. Zip tied a tube to a sealable bag and squeezed the new stuff into the fill plug. Interesting that the recommended amount (equal to amount drained) did not overflow the fill plug. So not sure its meant to be used as a level check in our case.
