hey guys, im just wondering, how often are you supposed to do a tranny flush? change the fuel filter? radiator flush? power steering flush?

just wondering if i should do it or not. my car has 35k miles on it, and i dont know if the previous owner did any of that (bought last april)

thanks guys!

 

Items and intervals:

Tranny flush: 30k
Fuel filter: 15k
Radiator Flush: 30k
PS: Motorvate site says once every year, so maybe for even 15k

 

Just to add:

Coolant system (radiator): every 2 years or 30k miles
Brake fluid: every 2 years
PS fluid: every 2 years (just do the turkey baster method)

For gear oil, I'd say 60k miles is more appropriate, since the fluid is for lubrication only, and isn't pressurized. For ATF, if you switch to a synthetic fluid, then 60k is an ok interval as well.

 

I plan on doing my manual oil every 60k. PS fluid has no official recommended change interval. Motorvate says every year, but this is surely overkill. I did it on my cars recently (79 and 91k) and frankly I am not sure I'll ever do it again. It's easy, but it's just not recommended anywhere, so I think it's hardly a critical thing, so I'm going to give a skoorbmax recommendation of every 60k for the heck of it. I'd have the same opinion regarding brake fluid.

Coolant is 60k for first interval and 30k thereafter. I personally change mine half each time using the motorvate.ca method (realizing that doing this only actually changes 75% every 30k but I don't lose sleep over it). I don't actually flush it. I simply dump half and then refill, and that's it.

Fuel filter on a 4th gen is not difficult, so the schedule recommended here is good!

 

get 300z for 30k

 

What about clutch fluid? I have a 95 SE with 57,200 mostly highway miles. I have owned the car since new and have never done anything to the clutch fluid.

I just had the brakes bled and fluid replaced with Dot 3 today and this has never been done. I was told after the fact that the brake fluid did not appear to be in too bad of condition. But if one of the problems with brake fluid is moisture/condensation its just as well I replaced it. I don't know if I agree with replacing the brake fluid every 2 years. I still have the original brake pads with 50% on the front and 40% on the rear.

 

how do you have more brake pads on the front than the rear?

 

I don't know. My local stealership told me that the rears on my car are normally replaced first. Does this make any sense? I know normally a rear-wheel drive front brakes are replaced first. A friend of mine, who is mechanically inclined, said it doesn't make sense that my rear brakes would wear out first.

 

Your fronts must have been replaced at some point and maybe you didn't know about it? The fronts do about 66% of the braking, IIRC.

 

The guy at your stealership is smoking too much weed.

I wouldn't worry too much about brake fluid. It's good to change it, but very infrequently would be fine. Apparently clutch fluid should be changed too, but I've not done it - motorvate has a write up and it seemed more involved than bleeding brakes...

 

I've drained Amsoil tranny fluid after ~40k miles and it still looked brand new. I'll check again at 100k miles.

 

Regarding the brakes, they have never been worked on. I have owned the car since new, October 1, 1994. I'm glad I replaced the brake fluid. Its been in there for 10-1/2 years because, as I say, the brakes have never been touched. I don't use them, lol!
Actually the car has a high percentage of highway miles and I slow down before I get to red lights and stop signs, etc. and don't stomp on the brakes. I also downshift the manual transmission.

I double checked the invoice and it reads - front brakes 50% to indicator, rear brakes 40% to indicator. A few years ago the reading was 80% front and 70% rear. I don't know whats going on as I don't drive backwards too much, lol!

 

I have changed the clutch fluid on my 2K2 using the writeup on motorvate.ca and it's actually very easy and I am by no means mechanically inclined. The toughest part was getting access to the clutch slave cylinder bleed screw. For those with a stock intake like me, I had to remove the first piece of the intake to reasonably get at it. I am not sure if it would be the same in a pre-2K2 max or not.

 

I was checking today and meant to rescind my post. it does in fact look quite easy - I'm not sure why it took him 2 hours the first time !

 

A stupid question, but does a A/T maxima have a clutch fluid to change?

 

You're right, it is a stupid question! The short answer is NO.

 

It's true. On these cars, it must be the compounding of the rear pads or the way the proportioning is set up...but they do wear out much quicker than the fronts. Typically you would expect the fronts to wear out first...

 

Tranny flush
Once a year or every 15,000 miles. I've been doing it twice a year now since tracking the car on road courses

Fuel Filter
I plan to do this at 100,000 miles even though its a maintenance free item according to Nissan

Radiator Flush
Every 2-3 years. Pure distilled water with genuine Nissan/Honda/Toyota coolant

Power steering Flush - unknown