3 Tips That Can Increase Your Automatic Transmission's Lifespan

One of the worst auto repairs to find out that you need is for your transmission, mostly because the transmission can be one of the most expensive components on your vehicle to have repaired. Listed below are three tips that can increase your automatic transmission's lifespan so that you can avoid an expensive repair for as long as possible.

Give Your Vehicle Time to Warm Up

One of the easiest ways to extend your transmission's lifespan is to simply start your vehicle and wait a few moments before driving on cold days. The reason for this is that the transmission fluid needs a bit of time to warm up so that it can provide the proper lubrication for your transmission in order to prevent damage from friction.

In most cases, you will not need to leave your car warming up for a long time, 30 seconds to a minute should be more than sufficient. In addition, make sure to take it a bit easy on the vehicle for the first few minutes while you are driving to give the transmission fluid even more time to warm up and provide more protection for your transmission.

Let Your Parking Brake Do Its Job

Another simple way is to make sure that your transmission is not subjected to unnecessary wear and tear is to let your parking brake do its job when you are parking on an incline. A major mistake that many drivers make is to rely too much on placing their vehicles in park to keep the vehicle in place. However, when you leave your vehicle in park when you stop on an incline, you are putting a large amount of strain on the pin that keeps the transmission in park, which is completely unnecessary when you can put on the parking brake and let that component take on the strain.

Don't Speed Away from a Stop

Finally, you should avoid speeding away from a stop sign or traffic light if you want your transmission to last as long as possible. Sure, speeding away from a stop can be a lot of fun when you have a powerful or fast vehicle, but this puts a lot of strain on the transmission. When you speed away from the stop, you are pushing the vehicle to shift up  very quickly, which can cause a lot of damage over time.

Contact a transmission repair service or your local mechanic today to have your transmission checked out and to discuss how you can prevent damage to the transmission. Warming your vehicle up on cold days, using your parking brake, and not speeding away from a stop are all simple steps that you can take to increase your transmission's lifespan.