Changed my Volvo's tranny fluid today. Car only has 25,000 miles on it total, but because it's about ten years old I figured what the hell... There's no filter in the 850's tranny so I also added a 3/8" Magnefine inline filter to the return line. The Magnefine can be found online for about $15, has a magnet and a micron filter inside it. It's flow direction sensitive so you have to pay attention to the arrows. The old fluid was pretty dark but not burnt smelling. I used Quaker State synthetic blend ATF that's rated for almost everything from Dexron IIE (Volvos) to Mercon-V (newest Fords). I pulled the tranny drainplug and drained about 5 quarts into a pan, then reinstalled the drainplug and poured in 4 quarts of new fluid, disconnected the return line (lower line on the radiator...) and cranked up the motor and let it flush out some dark used fluid into a clear container. I did this until fresh bright red fluid started to come out. Actually I cut the return line where I was going to install the Magnefine filter and pointed the hose downward into the container. You can splice some clear tubing onto the hose if that helps. I managed to break a few 1/2" hose clamps in the process and had to run back over to Lowes for some new ones, but other than that it was pretty painless and straight forward. Its funny that the shop manual doesn't even recommend changing the fluid unless the tranny is acting up but by then I think it's too late. Since there's no filter in the 850's tranny I think 25-30k miles is plenty to warrant a change of fluid. I'd rather do some preventive maintenance than wait till the thing fails and costs me thousands to fix. This is actually my wife's car and sits in the garage most of the time, I drive a truck. But I maintain all our cars with that in mind. Anyway I highly recommend the routine fluid changes if you're not doing them already. I'll post a pic of the before and after fluid.



Mike
'95 850T


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