I am looking into performing some general maintenance to my girlfriends Maxima. The dealer wants $350+ to pull the spark plugs and clean them, flush the radiator, change the tranny fluid, air filter, fuel filter (which I was told does not exist on these cars) and some other stuff. I think $350 is high for a car that is still under the factory warranty, we have the extended warranty for 60K 5 years and I believe the drive train in these cars are covered up to 100K. My girlfriend does take the car on the highway all the time and does drive the car aggressively. She does not beat it but she does drive it where there should not be any build up in the motor.

Any way I am getting tried of the deal telling her that she needs to do this and that. I did some searching around and it looks like most of you recommend changing the tranny fluid and radiator fluid around 30K.

My questions are.

I have done radiator flushes before and just want to make sure the 2000 Maxima is no different. Drain the fluid, put a running hose in the radiator fill hole, run the car for a few minutes and then fill the radiator back up with 50/50 mix. We live in Mass and she drives the car year round. Temps are 0-100 degrees though out the year.

Changing the tranny fluid. From what I have read you need a special tool to flush out all the fluid. If you don’t then you only change about 3 qts of fluid and still have about 9 dirty quarts still in the tranny. I read that someone drained the fluid and then left the plug out of the tranny pan and started filling the tranny back up until clean fluid started coming out the drain plug. If I do it that way will that essentially give me a full tranny fluid change or will this only clean the pan. I guess the question is, besides the special tool is there any other way to get the fluid out of the converter, or does the converter only release tranny fluid while the car is running and in gear? I am also going to pull the pan down after most of the fluid is drained and clean that as well.

Is there anything else I should do to the car at this point? (30K)

Thanks for any help.

John

 

http://integra.vtec.net/geeser/megamax/60k_service.html

 

$350 for a complete tune-up is pretty common for a 6 cylinder (and a dealer). Normally a complete tune-up they probably want to replace the water pump (or timing belts on cars with them) which adds up to more. Whether the car is under warranty has nothing to do with this general maintenance, unless you believe something is failing prematurely (you don't say how many miles the car has).

Now of course this is a lot more than it would cost you to do as most of the cost is labor. It seems like you are talking about the 1st 30k miles, if so I typically do a small tune-up (replace the obvious stuff but leave the water pump alone assuming its not already leaking). Radiator flushes are easy but then you have to go through the hassle of properly dumping the fluid. Changing plugs, PCV, air filters, etc. is easy. Fuel filter is a pain as the gas is under pressure and can make a hell of a mess if you are not prepared.

I've never changed the transmission fluid on an auto but I'm told 1) it should be done every 30k or 12 months, 2) should be done such that all fluids are removed, and 3) should include replacing the various filters inside. I have a MT which is straightforward to change fluid.

Hope this helps.

 

Read your owners manual.

It tells you what to change and what to inspect. Most everything at 30K is Do It Yourself stuff. A simple drain and refill of your auto tranny is just fine. Thats what the dealer is gonna do anyhow. A radiator flush is basically just how you described it.

You should change your air filter at least yearly to maintain optimal performance. I clean my K&N air filter every 6 months.

Spark plugs never get cleaned, there platinum and last 60K miles, don't touch them.

At 30K all I did was a tranny fluid change.

Your dealer is sucking your wallet dry.

Do the work yourself - and with the $$$ you save take your girl out for a nice dinner.

 

For the tranny, drain and fill 2-3 times to swap more of the ATF with fresh stuff. Drive the car for a few miles each time. There is no need to drop the pan at all for this. I would also change the coolant, air filter and the fuel filter (it does have one, it's just a PITA so I think dealer's like to ignore it.) There is no need to do anything with the plugs until 60K, they are platinum tipped and hold up very well.

 

Basically follow what most of the fellow members have said on here. I recommend to at least pull one plug to check the firing of it ensuring it is firing correctly. BUt they should last AT LEAST 60K if not 100K. The fuel filter is for 100K so don't touch that. Radiator flush is recommended, but not necessary. Also I highly recommend a tranny flush...not just draining. iwannabmw's method should be ok for "flushing" the tranny if you do it every 30K.

 

There is no true fuel filter... there's this big white thing connected to the fuel pump that might be the filter. I didn't take any pics when I changed the fuel pump.

 

No, you can do without special tool just using car itself .
It was already discussed here: http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....threadid=73698

One last note - the ATF goes directly from refill pipe down to the pan so it doesn't make much sense to leave drain plug out of the pan. Maxima has special ATF radiator and TC as you mentioned so dropping pan itself will do nothing useful since those guys contain most of the old ATF and pan would be already empty anyway.

Mike.