Shift Solenoid Maintenance: Ensuring Smooth Transitions with AMSOIL

Publisher's Note: Welcome to our thirteenth edition of Tech Tips Tuesday on "Shift Solenoid Maintenance: Ensuring Smooth Transitions with AMSOIL".  We'll be re-publishing an edition of AMSOIL Tech Tips for you every Tuesday.  Click on the Blog Category "Tuesday Tech Tips" to see everything published to-date.

John Gardner: Well, picture this: you're driving along, and your car's stuck in second gear, and then bam, up pops a check engine light. Welcome to this AMSOIL Tech Tip. Now, before you go replacing an expensive transmission, it may be as simple as a shift solenoid. What's a shift solenoid? Well, you can see them right here. There's the 1-2 shift solenoid, the 2-3 shift solenoid, and it's located in the valve body. What do they do? They actually control the shifts. How do they do it? Well, the computer's pretty smart. He can do a series of on and off, like first gear. If they're both on, well, you'll be in first gear. Second gear is off and on; you'll be in second gear. And this is pretty interesting: third gear is off-off. If your car fails, well, you're going to be stuck in third gear because they're both off. And fourth gear is on-off.

So, it achieves those gears, but it does it with a small shift solenoid here, Len, and this thing submerged in fluid, that could be a problem.

Len Groom: It can be, uh, you get back to fluid maintenance, and having a, you want to make sure that you're using a quality product so that it doesn't break down or degrade or leave deposits anywhere.

John Gardner: Absolutely, you give me a hand, we can actually give a pretty cool Tech tip. You just pop it out of there. This is what will be facing under your pan when you do it. You pull it out of there, and you can see it actually shoots the fluid and moves that valve. But if you hold it still for me, it's a solenoid, so there's actually an ohmic value of ohms of resistance. And ours is measuring about, let's see here, 21.4, 21.3. Check your manufacturer service manual then, because it shows good ohms doesn't mean it's not working, does it?

Len Groom: Right, you could actually ohm out and pass that, but if it's full of deposit and varnish, it might be sticking internally. So that could be your problem.

John Gardner: Now, how do we solve that problem with AMSOIL?

Len Groom: Maintain the fluid, change your fluid, uh, make sure you're using a high-quality synthetic. Our Signature Series products use the highest quality base oils, the best additives that you can get because this is a harsh environment that this transmission is living in. So, you got to make sure you're maintaining it, and you're using a quality product.