Flush or just oil change at 150k

[Kev0607]

Originally Posted by XC90Mk1

I don’t believe any manufacturer or professional garage/gear box company would ever do a drain and refill manually by hand. The machines that these garages use to do a traditional flush are not expensive compared to others (couple of grand) and they allow a genuine flush to be done In under an hour (under 30mins for a volvo) as opposed to multiple hours by hand. They are also suitable for use across all vehicles and all platforms.

Doing a ‘sump dump’ refresh is a home mechanic in the drive technique. I swear on sump dumps, they are an excellent way to get lovely cherry red fluids with all new gaskets and o-rings for double figures. But they are just that, home mechanic based.

I got to the point (and still am) whereby I can drop the fluid, refil and be on with my day in sub 30 minutes. But with at least four of these required it would take your local garage 2 hours plus and from a fluid perspective it’s very wasteful.

There's plenty that do drain & fills only & these are professional Volvo specialists.

I asked for a traditional flush & was told they don't do it (by more than one garage).

Methods may vary between garages though, so ones in your neck of the woods may well do a traditional flush, but I'm yet to find one near me that does a fluid change with a machine & is a Volvo specialist.

I wouldn't bring my car to a generic gearbox specialist, but that's through personal choice. I'd much prefer to bring it to a garage that actually knows solely Volvo's & their transmission's inside out, instead of a place that deals with all sorts of makes & models.

[XC90Mk1]

Originally Posted by Kev0607

There's plenty that do drain & fills only & these are professional Volvo specialists.

I asked for a traditional flush & was told they don't do it (by more than one garage).

Methods may vary between garages though, so ones in your neck of the woods may well do a traditional flush, but I'm yet to find one near me that does a fluid change with a machine & is a Volvo specialist.

I wouldn't bring my car to a generic gearbox specialist, but that's through personal choice. I'd much prefer to bring it to a garage that actually knows solely Volvo's & their transmission's inside out, instead of a place that deals with all sorts of makes & models.

Thanks for feeding that back to me :-) I had assumed that it would be much simpler to do it with a machine however it seems that’s not the case.

It makes me feel better as I flushed it myself and now I know that’s what a lot of garages would have done anyway!

Cheers.

[Kev0607]

Originally Posted by XC90Mk1

Thanks for feeding that back to me :-) I had assumed that it would be much simpler to do it with a machine however it seems that’s not the case.

It makes me feel better as I flushed it myself and now I know that’s what a lot of garages would have done anyway!

Cheers.

Well, it is easier to flush with a machine (its all done at once then). Just the garages I've come across either don't have a machine full stop or tell me "don't use a machine to flush the transmission, just drain & fill it". There's probably plenty of garages with machines, but I'm yet to come across them. Horton has one & is very highly regarded, but that's the other end of the country to me.

Now, this leads me onto the next point...

It depends what you class as a 'flush'. You can drain/refresh the fluid via the oil cooler by disconnecting one of the hoses & putting that hose into a bucket/container. Then the other hose goes into your new container of fresh fluid & you start the car, then new fluid is sucked in & the old fluid comes out. Repeat the process until the fluid is clean, but you have to be careful that you don't run out of fluid with the car running (so have plenty to hand)!

Alternatively, you can bring a car to a garage that has a fancy & probably expensive machine that does effectively the same thing as the gibbons method, but the fluid goes through the machine itself & not into buckets/containers.