Is Flooring it bad for the automatic transmission?
I have a 94 corolla 3spd auto
it works like a champ but i always go slow and lately i decide to go faster.... works good but should i keep it up? it's alot of fun i probally will anyway just wondering what people have to say on the subject.
in the toyota owners manual for my car it says something to this effect "if you need to accelerate quickly press the pedal to the floor the transmission will downshift bla bla.."
so what makes so many transimissions die? is it not changing the fluid?
That and neglecting or forgetting maintenance work, neutral dropping, manually shifting gears yourself (L-2-D), shifting into park while the car is still moving. Generally careless things.
Lately, I've been experiencing problems with my transmission downshifting, have yet to figure things out either.
...I think I can safely say that after 120,000+ miles of 'furious driving' (with loads ranging between 50 and 500 lbs), flooring it entirely too much of the time hasn't damaged my A245E in any perceptible way. No new noises since my ownership, no shifting issues, no fluid/filter issues. I've done a lot of manual shifting as well, and as the transmission won't actually downshift if doing so would put you above rev-limiter revs in the next gear down, I really don't see why--with proper maintenance--it would be an issue.
Apparently that same transmission is, stock, reliable up to around 200 WHP, which should give some inkling of how Toyota overbuilt as usual.
One caveat...about 40K of this driving has been with the Transgo shift kit installed.
Hah, this is what I get for turning off the subscription option...I already kind of summed it up in my 7AGE build thread, so I'll just reproduce that here. My transmission is a 4-speed, and with the way I abuse the car, I'd say for the money I've spent I've probably saved the tranny from premature death...
I had about 110-120K when I put the shift kit in--I'd started a job where I was driving around with 300 pounds of stuff in the trunk every single day, and had just graduated from pizza delivery, so I figured anything to shorten transmission slippage time in shifts was worthwhile. Hence the shift kit. Shifts at WOT--now that I've had lots of time for it to adjust if it's going to--are still crisp and quick. Bang. It's like a very well-shifted stick. At part throttle, the shifts are firmer but not jarring. You feel this sort of 'pop' and you've got the next gear. Shifts in less time than it takes to snap your fingers and it's not mushy at ALL. Transgo describes their reprogramming kit as "Corrects: Soft 1-2. Long 2-3 at heavy throttle. Firmer 4th and Lockup. Designed for Nitrous or Turbo Charging. Hot Rod, Street Show Off"" and for the most part I agree with them. Cost me about $100 for the kit, about $200 for install...and I've had no problems with the transmission since installation about 10-20K miles ago. (There's a slight rattle in second at certain RPMs, but that's been there for a while.)
So what does that translate to in everyday driving?
Acceleration is slightly quicker through multiple-gear runs, fluid stays cleaner, feedback is better, I can manually downshift more aggressively and more often before the smell of a hot transmission starts to filter back into the cabin...really, it's more like preventative maintenance than a performance upgrade, if you want to look at it that way. It just happens to shift quicker as well as prolonging life. =)
nice thanks for the reply.
very informative... funny you mentioned pizza delivey thats what i do...
but hey is that shift kit going to work on a 3 spd?
did they have to remove that transmission to install it? i cant find installation instructions anywhere how hard is it?
No problem. Yeah, despite my better job I do miss being a driver. You get to meet a lot of interesting people, eat free food, and drive all over the place with pleasant smells in the car. Of course I lucked out and they didn't make me put the sign on my whip...
The three-speed is a different transmission, not sure of the exact code. The kit for the A245 probably won't work, given the complexity of the valve body.
The transmission was not dropped to install. The pan and valve body were removed and altered on a bench...the kit actually comes with a fairly good set of instructions and supposedly a video is also available. If you can get the car in the air and the parts off, it shouldn't be too difficult to do it yourself.
Yeah,for a while. Never underestimate the utility of 'in-car GPS navigation' on the application when applying for a pizza job 2,400 miles away from roads you know. =)
I think this came up previously. I seem to recall that the general consensus was yes, but by the time you were done, you'd have burned through a lot of time and a lot of money and the end result wouldn't go well with the smaller engine's powerband anyway. For the amount of effort involved, you could probably just do a 4AGE + 5sp swap.
hell yea thats what i need to get navigation.. i want to make my whip look just like yours pretty much all black euro lights navigation how much have you invested?
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