Prolong Transmission Treatment???

Was at Autozone today, just browsing and i saw this stuff that caught my eye called...Prolong Transmission Treatment and was wondering if anything this stuff really works???? I feel like i run fuel injection cleaner through my gas but nothing for anything else.. So anyone have any experience with any type of transmission cleaner sorta type of stuff?? btw my transmission is not leaking, so that not wanting a stop leak or anything. thanks

I always use the Lucas tranny treatment. All of their products I have used have been great.

If you use the Lucas do it while changing the filter and put it in the pan beforre bolting it back up, otherwise it will take about 2 hours to drain down the dipstick hole. This stuff is really thick!

tranny fluid is by nature, a cleaner. the problem you run into is excess heat, causing the fluid to break down. most over the counter stuff is considered "snake oil". the only manufacturer recommended product i know of is, Lubeguard brand additive. i have heard the big 3, use this product( supposedly) it's used to control breakdown from the heat, plus a few other qualities it's supposed to have. opinions vary, don't believe everything you read, of course including my post, things change. do some research, and make your own conclusion.

lubrication!!!

THe best lubricant I have found comes from Schaffer Oil, out of St. Louis. They are one THE oldest lubricant companies in the US. Their stuff is great. I used to work for them. I still use their stuff. Check them out.

All the lubricants you use already have an extensive additive package, that the oil companies spent billions in R&D to come up with.

Most of the after market additives with flashy advertising and packaging are just snake oil. Your better off, just changing the fluid often with quality fluid and filters.

Of course there are some good additives out there and some limited circumstances where an extra additive might help a particular problem or could extend component life by adding some particular protection that is needed from some unusual circumstance. But those are few and far between.

Yes, I use the Fuel Injector Cleaners, often it doesn't work to clean out bad injectors. It may help prevent the deposits from building up and remove some soft stuff in there from the occasional less than good quality fuel. Lucas and Redline seem good. Most of the others seem useless, but I don't really know, I've never pulled fuel injectors, disassembled them and look at the pintels under a magnifying glass.

Sorry, but I'm skeptical that the Prolong Additive might do something to actually lengthen the life of your transmission.

The best thing you can do is fluid changes on the tranny, maybe every 25,000mi or so. Heat is what damages the fluid over time, that and not changing it.

check if it has PTFE in it, if it does, then keep it away from your XJ!

PTFE, aka Teflon, has been used in all sorts of things, even though DuPont says it does nothing in that kind of enviroment and may actually prove harmful.

My AW4 has 300k miles works perfectly and it never had any additives since 86k miles.

Normal fluid/filter changes, 1 output shaft seal, cleaned NSS couple times, that's it. Why go looking for problems where there isn't any?

How many miles do you have you your Jeep right now, and what color is the fluid?

If you havent already, might want to think about doing a fluid and filter change, which is relatively easy on the AW4. It would give you peace of mind knowing that it's been done, and you wouldn't be expecting any problems out of it.

Although, the AW4 is a pretty tough automatic. I cooked mine once on accident after sitting in heavy stop and go traffic for an hour, to the point where when I finally got through the traffic and back up to speed, the minute I took my foot off the gas to get off at my exit, it slammed out of over drive and started spewing ATF out of the breather, onto the hot exhaust.....made for quite a smoke show.

I checked the fluid and it was brown and burnt, however it was almost a month before I could get the fluid and filter changed, and I did about 1000 highway miles in that time with no problems.

Heat oxidizes and degrades the Transmission Fluid, if your tranny never got hot, the fluid could last for many many years. A lot of old street cars with huge Automatic Transmission and low gearing, lasted the life of the car without ever changing transmission fluid. IF THEY NEVER TOWED. Because the conditions for the trans never got them hot enough to burn up the fluid. ITS NOT THE SAME FOR TODAYS TRANSMISSIONS.

So you change your trans fluid often to replace as much as you can the partially oxidize/degraded fluid, to keep the mixture up with fresh good fluid. And the fluid oxidizes bit by bit between changes as the trans temps spike from time to time under heavy use before the next change that freshens up the fluid.

Agree about the PTFE (Teflon) additives. DuPont doesn't recommend it, because all the research shows its unlikely to do any good and far more likely to do harm. There are a few independent studies that do indicate that there is the slightest improvement in reducing friction in some circumstances while the particles are in the oil, but it never attaches to the engine parts and its all gone by the next oil change. To coat parts with teflon require a pure vacuum and super high temperatures in a very controlled lab environment, that is NOT happening in your crankcase when you mix some powderized teflon in with your oil.

Especially in a trans, that has lots of friction surfaces with clutches and bands. What is teflon going to do on a clutch surface?? I can't see how teflon could ever be good for a trans, if it did anything, I think it would mess up the trans royally, and the fact that people use it and it doesn't mess up their trans just goes to show you how effective the product really is. If teflon really coated the parts and reduced friction, then your trans should never shift right again, because all the clutches would be slipping, but yet the trans runs just like before.

After working on cars for over 30 years, I personally don't run any treatments or additives. The engineers that designed the parts spec'ed which fluids to run in them, and designed them accordingly without the need for additives and treatments that have qualities the engineers didn't take into consideration.

Just run the regular fuels and oils without the extra stuff. Save your money on additives and use it on preventive maintenance instead. Regular fluid changes and tune-ups will go a longer way to preserving your vehicle than using additives. Just my $0.02.

Yeah you all have really good points and told me alot that i didnt know. And thats true, if it wasnt already in there then it prolly doesnt belong.

I've had good results from TransX - a slippage going into gear, slow to get into gear, etc. I once compared before and after inside the case and it did seem to dissolve some varnish like deposit. It's pretty volatile smelling.

As such, if there isn't a leak (it'll stop leak too), I put a pint to a qt in about 100 miles before a fluid change to clean whatever it can, then use the 'powered' fluid change method.

Results on Ford, Buick, Toyota and Chevy transmissions. When I got my 89 XJ, the fluid was past gone and it had a graceful slide into second. Used it, changed fluid, put more in and changed a month later and it has a nice firm 1-2 shift now.

skipc said:

I've had good results from TransX - a slippage going into gear, slow to get into gear, etc. I once compared before and after inside the case and it did seem to dissolve some varnish like deposit. It's pretty volatile smelling.

As such, if there isn't a leak (it'll stop leak too), I put a pint to a qt in about 100 miles before a fluid change to clean whatever it can, then use the 'powered' fluid change method.

Results on Ford, Buick, Toyota and Chevy transmissions. When I got my 89 XJ, the fluid was past gone and it had a graceful slide into second. Used it, changed fluid, put more in and changed a month later and it has a nice firm 1-2 shift now.

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there's one in every crowd - that's why the stuff is still on shelves. Ask any of these additive success stories how it did what it did and they don't know. Only guesses and butt-dyno claims.

I know this - 35 years I've yet to see a can fix anything! Nope, that only happens with tools, knowledge and hard work.

I agree with you XJXJ, 99%.

Sticking lifters, just a little bit of lifter tick, I have seen additives free up the lifters and solve the problem. As well, fuel injector cleaner, In the past, I have seen smooth out the idle of the vehicle, NOT as much today, I think they improved the injectors today so they don't clog as easily.

Yes, 99 times out of 100, pouring a can into a component is NOT going to solve the problem. BUT, if the problem is just a tiny bit of gum or varnish, an additive might clear it out and solve the minor problem. I'd agree thats very limited, but on a NOT to do further harm basis, I will try an additive if I think there is a touch of gum or varnish it might desolve and clear it up.

BTW, Marvelous Mystery Oil, the stuff I have seen free up ticking lifters, anyone know what that stuff is made of?? It certainly Looks, Feels, Smells like ATF. And funny every benefit it lists on the can also happens to also be the "Old Mechanic Tales" or Conventional Wisdom as to the cure of adding a little ATF to your engine oil.

Don't get me wrong, I don't endorse the cure-all additives, I just believe a few and very limited minor problems like lifter tick or slightly fouled injector, and the right additive might clean up that minor gumming causing the problem. I think most of us agree, for everyone of those limited cases, there are a 100 other problems that people are selling snake oil to solve and the only way to solve it is to fix the actual problem.

I'm a little grumpy today Rick, don't mean to sound harsh but probably did. Yeah, I've ran Techron through my tank every once in a while "hoping" that it might clean some intake valve deposits. I can't say it worked anymore than I can say it didn't but that's what "sales engineering" relies on for miracle products.

1% success rate with can or 100% success via solid repair work? Uh, at this point in my life I'll take the latter.

Take a look back, I edited my comment and added Marvelous Mystery Oil and my belief its probably just ATF.

I wasn't trying to argue with you either XJXJ.

I think we agree, it would NOT be surprising that if you have a very minor problem that is being caused by just the very beginnings of gumming or new varnish deposits, a good additive that can remove that might solve the problem. That has got to be 0.1% of the cases.

Overwhelmingly, the additives are just snake oil with ignorant vehicle owners being fooled into throwing their money away in false hope they can find an easy fix.

*Additives that Swell Seals?? Ummm, Ok, I can see how that might help a leaky seal, but not all the seals on the motor are leaking, so what is this swelling going to do to the good seals, especially against rotating/reciprocating parts? Valve Stem Seals and Rear Main Seals only seal and last because they rub against the reciprocating/rotating part with just enough tension that it keeps the oil from getting past it, but lets enough oil into the seal to lubricate it and not create enough friction to tear the seal apart. You swell that seal, whats going to happen??? I imagine it will get chewed up quickly.

*Additives that coat parts with anti-friction materials? OK, you can actually get parts coated with stuff like this, but the process is so different than the conditions in your crankcase, how the heck does the coating get applied? They also use the same stuff for transmissions?? Transmission have clutches/bands/Synchros all that stuff needs to use friction and the fluid is formulated to allow just the right balance of friction and lubrication, so coating everything the trans with an anti-friction material is going to help those clutches/bands/Synchros? It should make them all slip and thus the trans won't work right and the slipping should cause damage. The Informed Opinions and Experts say this stuff say these do NOTHING AT ALL, except have foreign particles floating about in the fluid. The fact that people put this in their trans and NOT experience problems is pretty good evidence that the informed opinions are right it does NOTHING AT ALL.

*Products that dissolve gum and varnish? Now this sounds realistic, you can dissolve this stuff with a solvent, as long as its strong enough. BUT wait, what will this do to the lubricating properties of fluid in the component? Solvents usually degrade lubricants, so won't you be risking doing greater damage from lack of lubrication?

Many years ago I was a partner in a garage. We had several tranmission jobs at one time so we decided to do a test of these 'treatments'. This is how I've come to use TransX.

First we took an old seal and a new seal and put it in a couple of different products. One looked like it inflated the seal to twice it's size and it was mushy. The TransX expanded something like 10 or 20% on the old one, nothing on the new one.

Then we took a part (it may have been a servo cylinder) that was streaked with pink-orange. As varnish-y as it gets inside a tranny. It cleaned it to bright and shiny quickly. Good solvent.

The complaints ranged from slipping on upshift to a leak to 'not going into gear like it used to' if I remember right. In each case we gave it the treatment as test with the customer's agreement. After a few hundred miles we dropped each pan and each was visibly cleaner as far as the orange-pink staining goes.

We changed fluids, added again, and charged something like $10. Each case was diagnosed as either possibly a leaking servo, glazed band, hardened seal, etc. Nothing totally broken down and nothing that appeared to be because of a broken part. Each was told the problem might come back in a day, or in 50,000 miles. No one can tell, but $10 today or tear it down for $1000. If it works, you just saved. If not, you took a $10 gamble.

We did all the maintenance on these cars, so they didn't go anywhere else. Over the course of the next few years (until I left) the leak never came back, all worked well enough the problem was considered 'gone', one had 50k more miles and still going, and the worst lasted an extra 10k or so. They were all happy with the results.

If a problem presented itself similarly, and we thought it would help, we always gave it as an option from then on. Many took it, all were happy. It didn't work every time, but a LOT of times. There are a lot of cases where it's effects address the problem. The goal was a happy customer, and if they wanted to spend the money, we didn't stop them. If a can of something will free up a servo or valve and cost a couple of dollars, and the alternative is several hundred $$ to poke around trying to find the offending gummed up part, why not try it? We started using it on all of our personal cars and not one had to have anything else done. Not very scientific on that one, but we statistically had to do something once in a while because we would have higher mileage cars ourselves... We were happy too...

A friend came to me a couple of years ago with a Buick Century that reved between first and second on the shift (big slippage). He took it to a reputable shop (and the one I'd take a terminal case to as well) and was offered the $2000 teardown. We tried the TransX and in about 50 miles it firmed up. It's still going strong. Was it a seal? Was it a sticky servo? A gummy valve in the valve body? Who knows. A $7 bottle saved him $2000. Still saving him. And with that slippage, he wouldn't have gotten too many shifts out of it if he just waited and did nothing...

Maybe it's brain waves or maybe it's actually cleaning something. Either way, it's always worth a try to see if it will work. All my cars have between 150k and 300k miles on them, from a 1965 to a 1992, and since I began using it a few decades ago, I've not had to do anything to a single tranny. However, before that, I was averaging 75k-100k miles before one had to be taken apart. That's a lot of time and money saved, so if I'm being silly, I'm being silly all the way to the bank...

And BTW... I'm gonna keep up this silliness too. I need to keep these transmissions working - you never know when I might have to drive one of these nay-sayers to the transmission shop to get their tranny overhauled..