I blew that up right away. It was fine until day 3 when I finally read the manual and tried to tune it... I accidentally over-drove it (who knew you could do that?) and blew up the amp. #junk #failfinity
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Now onto more important things. Lifetime fluids, ugh. So the 7 speed transmission in this is one of those don't do anything to it and leave it alone transmissions. Well about that.... It had the smallest/slightest shudder an super low granny driving 1-2 shift. Something the dealer would tell you is normal and most people wouldn't notice or care about.
So I phoned our favorite mechanic @bikrboy128 over at the world famous BP/TCG Speed shop and he promptly sent me the instructions on how to swap the fluid. This is a chicken and the egg moment to me. Why are their fluid swap procedures when you aren't supposed to swap fluids? I went to visit the speed shop last night and we had a nice discussion how OEMs want to make their cars seem cheap to maintain until you nuke the trans at 100k (well outside warranty).
55k miles and the fluid was brown, gross.... I am happy to say that this fixed my issue and no studder was detected yesterday or today. He also took care of the diffs, tc, and oil while under there so ready for winter. I always appreciate @bikrboy128 's expertise!
Cliffs, change your fluids even if you think you don't have to.
Otherwise, I love this car, its awesome and yeah that's all I got for today. Cheers!
It seems like most of the OEMs are doing this with transmissions. My daily driver Ford Escape has lifetime trans fluid. Luckily there is a drain plug and a breather on top of the trans that makes for easy filling. I drain and fill every 30k since it's cheap and easy maintenance. Everytime the fluid is black. I think that's just normal for the lifetime fluids.