2012 Transmission Drain Swap
Hey all, I "obtained" [not my choice, family member widow can't drive anymore] a 2012 with 83,000 miles. It smelled weird, and was comically slow but made it to Richmond from Chicago after we had paid her $5,000 for it. Had a less than 2 year old battery, 10,000 miles on the tires, recent new front brakes, some new front lugs, and only rust on the hood. I knew it needed an oil change as had been sitting unused over a year. I also was not keen on the Compass model given its less-than-amazing reliability record, same as the Patriot. I was NoT happy to learn the CVT was a $5,000 job should it implode.
It kicks and bucks at 28mph to 33mph and I figured swap the transmission fluid since hasn't been done at all that I had any record of. After a shop said $500ish to do that so I ordered the parts ($15 for gasket and filter cartridgr and the pre-filter) also $55 for a pan with a drain plug to not have to disturb gasket again given my doubts it will even go 30,000 more miles anyway. I ordered a cap with measure dipstick too. Went to AutoZone and got 2 gallon jugs of blue Valvoline CVT fluid, $35 each.
Took off the under-cover plastic to expose the transmission pan. Drained fluid into a big bake pan to capture/measure what came out. Let that drip and pulled the prefilter out which seemed to have FAR more torque than the 18 bolts of the pan. I put in the new pre-filter and slowly drove in those 3 bolts. Middle one snapped the threadding. 🤨😑 I was like well damnit. The other 2 bolts held fast so wasn't gonna attempt a rethread risking metal bits bouncing around so backed the spinny-screw out which thankfully had the failed threads still on it.
I put the new drain-plugged pan on after cleaning old magnets popping them on it and I swear 2 bolts for that felt they were not snugging up!! I'm like is this car made of playdough??? Was not Hulking anything at all, just slowly tightening. I found just shy of 6 quarts had drained out so put that much in. Was 11:00PM so I would get the filter under the battery today.
All-in-all if you're alright with putting a vehicle up on ramp stands, have socket set and panel clip removal tool, and don't mind risking getting dirty or possible stripped threads of an expensive time-bomb of a transmission than this job's for you.
Did I make anything worse? I saw on here once, and so quote: "It's a Jeep, it can't be made any more unreliable."