i have a 95 xj ,and it has a dipstick im pretty sure a drain plug too..so my question is can i just drain the old fluid and fefill?? in doing searches on here i find a lot of people drop the pan..the truck has 115,000 on it shifts nice and the fluid looks ok its a light brown,just want to know if its ok to drain and refill? thanks

 

you can, but there is a transmission fluid filter that it'd be smart to replace.

 

yea thats true..can i just take off the bottom part of the pan? or do i have to drop the whole pan?

 

Its not a traditional filter... its just a metal screen. Take a good look at the fluid when it is draining. If it doesn't look burnt or have a bunch of junk in it, I wouldn't bother with dropping the pan. That can be a bit of pain in the rear. Many times the dipstick tube will not want to come out of the pan when you are trying to remove the pan.

 

Sounds like your transmission is in good working order and the fluid is normal (slight brown / red in color and doesn't smell burnt). My transmission service routine is to pull the plug and drain the transmission fluid every 10-12k and fill it up with about 4 qts of DexIII/Mercon fluid. Thats probably a bit excessive but I love my XJ. Every 36k, I will drop the pan to inspect/replace the filter. Either way you are only getting part of the fluid out of the system which is part of the reason I do it often. I agree with the previous post that dropping pan every time fluid is changed is not necessary unless you do a lot of towing or the fluid looks / smells burnt.

 

i think ill just inspect the oil as i drain if it looks clean ill just drain and refill,thanks for the help

 

stay away from valvoline synthetic ATF. my buddy rebuilt his tranny and filles it with the synthetic stuff, burned his clutches by the time he reached the end of his street. also some guy here on CF had the same happen to him. your conventional ATF is fine.