I would follow your indie's advice. I remember reading an article by a transmission specialist saying exactly that.

Most garages like to do as much work as possible, its magnitude often directly proportional to the credulity of the customer, so by not advising unnecessary work it sounds as though your indie is a good'un.

I second Cws' point.

It is especially important to change transmission fluid if you tow.

In America, oil and ATF are very cheap - many there still use 3,000 mile oil change intervals.

Personally, I prefer to use colour/smell of the ATF to determine when to change - translucent red is new, opaque red is ok, brown needs changing and black/stinky is too late!

One other thing, I heard that some Lexus USA dealerships change auto gearbox oil annually or 20,000 miles! As i said, the americans know automatics better than we do so i find their practices much mitre authoritative on the issue.

Oh yeah? It appears tantamount to fraudulent extortion to me.

I can see JohnF's points, and up to a point if a person was stuck with only main dealer servicing where a gearbox oil change could be knocking on the door of £300, 4 of those changes over say 160 or 200k miles costing some £1200, then yes one might be tempted to risk the box especially when the vehicle gets over half life..

For many of us though where changing the box oil could be half that at an indy or 1/5th by DIYing, then it's almost criminal not to give one of the most expensive parts of the vehicle every chance possible of lasting as long as the vehicle instead of possiby being the reason for scrapping.

Manual boxes no different, most normal cars the oil would cost £30 tops and a couple of hours tops even struggling on the driveway, why on earth would anyone risk a £1000+ box for the sake of £30 every 40k miles, it simply doesn't make sense to me, but then lots of car things don't make sense any more like never checking your engine oil and getting the hump because the engine is seized or damaged costings £hundreds at no mileage to speak of.

I wouldn't mind but the cost of good servicing pales into insignificance in the grand scheme of car ownership.

My Foz requires oil changes every 30k miles as part of the service schedule. I think it's a sensible move by Subaru to prolong gearbox life. I'm glad that they have a pride in their engineering that they would want to prolong the mechanicals rather than the short term idea of sealed for life then the scrapheap. Admittedly the car is four wheel drive, and so places extra stress on the gearbox.

I changed the oil for a different 50/50 mix suggested by Subaru forums. Gearbox shift quality was OK before, now it is superbly slick and effortless at all times of year including winter. Reverse on these is non synchromesh, it is now much easier to select.

I'm sure that many manual gearboxes will run for many thousands of miles without an oil change, but if you're keeping the car for a long time, doing so may make gear selection feel better.

Subaru autoboxes are an anomally - they originate, way back, from a Nissan Jatco gearbox that had a poor replutation for reliability - Subaru developed it independntly enabling excellent torque handling with excellent reliability - but only possible with regular ATF changes that didn't get longer over time/fashion like many others

Just given the box its last flush for this period, oil coming out was much nicer colour than a few weeks ago.

Also changed the engine oil and filter whilst down there and dirty, now featuring Shell Helix running through its veins, and i'm feeling me age.:-)

Subaru gets an engine oil change later in the week, and i'll drop and replenish a 5 litre sumpfull from the autobox while its raised, much easier with that, still has a good old gearbox dipstick.

Good stuff, certainly a nice day to do it. How do you get the ATF back in the box without pouring it down the dipstick tube (which it doesn't have).

Edited by Wackyracer on 02/07/2017 at 17:12