Sea Foam Trans Tune - my new favorite snake oil

By jove, that stuff worked quite nicely.

Wife's brick suffers from a balky transmission, a common malaise of that era. In no small part to getting gunky and sticky in the valve body. Slow shifts, dragged out shifts, sticks in reverse, etc.

Plan on doing a fluid change shortly, but thought I'd try using this stuff, to see if maybe it might help. Dumped most of a can in there, and hoped over the course of a week or so I might detect a bit of improvement.

No sir, it took less than 2 miles! And the difference is quite dramatic. Wow, I'm impressed! The transmission now shifts like an automatic should. Fixed all the shifting problems.

Still going to do a fluid change, and the B4 servo cover change. If for no other reason than I already bought the parts. But it is a happy shifting slushbox now.

That all sounds swell. How long will it last, though? Is this like running Sea Foam in the crank case where you should only do it for a short amount of time and then change the fluid?

According to the instructions on the can, it's the same as the oil additive. Put it in shortly before a fluid change.

I had an O'Reilly rep give me a can a few months ago. I've only used it as a p/s additive so far. 99% of the European cars I work on don't have a trans dipstick, so I can't just add some before a service.

That stuff does wonders on noisy power steering pumps too. Put it in and let it run until the squeezing stops, drain and refill with new fluid.

Can/faq/pdf all say slightly different things. But, mostly put some in before a flush, and put a bit in the new stuff to ward off evil spirits.

Some say it's the same as the regular fuel flush stuff. Pick up two cans and you'll feel the difference. The tranny stuff weights a good bit more, in the exact same size can.

How long will it last? It's a solvent and it cleaned up my wifes sticky balls. It'll last until her balls get sticky again. If I keep the fluid clean, her balls should stay clean.

It was a $10 experiment that worked far better than I expected, or even hoped.

foxtrapper wrote: It's a solvent and it cleaned up my wifes sticky balls. It'll last until her balls get sticky again. If I keep the fluid clean, her balls should stay clean.

Oh please tell me you meant to do that

tuna55 wrote:

foxtrapper wrote: It's a solvent and it cleaned up my wifes sticky balls. It'll last until her balls get sticky again. If I keep the fluid clean, her balls should stay clean.

Oh please tell me you meant to do that

...maybe...

foxtrapper wrote: Can/faq/pdf all say slightly different things. But, mostly put some in before a flush, and put a bit in the new stuff to ward off evil spirits. Some say it's the same as the regular fuel flush stuff. Pick up two cans and you'll feel the difference. The tranny stuff weights a good bit more, in the exact same size can. How long will it last? It's a solvent and it cleaned up my wifes sticky balls. It'll last until her balls get sticky again. If I keep the fluid clean, her balls should stay clean. It was a $10 experiment that worked far better than I expected, or even hoped.

i emailed seafoam, and they responded that the trans tune and regular seafoam products have the same ingredients at different concentrations.

belteshazzar wrote: i emailed seafoam, and they responded that the trans tune and regular seafoam products have the same ingredients at different concentrations.

I'm sure there's a lot of the same ingredients in both. But they ain't the same. This is red tinted, the other is clear. This is slightly oily on the fingers, the other isn't. This weighs a good bit more than the other.

Over on the faq or tech page, they talk about 2 of the 3 ingredients evaporating away, leaving the third residual in the transmission. Regular sea foam evaporates completely.

And no I wouldn't be surprised if the magical 3rd ingredient is bright red and oily when not thinned with solvents, and goes by the name of Dexron.

Advance Auto has had Seafoam on sale that last few times I've been in.

I think Seafoam is on the short list of snake oils that actually work, BUT I've always been told that an old transmission that hasn't been regularly serviced (basically every auto box in the country over 100k miles) should NOT be serviced because the gunk might be all that's holding it together. Wouldn't this exacerbate the problem?

Oldtimers have told me stories of tired autos that pulled into the bay for a trans service (flush and fill) and never moved again under their own power. Myth?

In reply to ShadowSix:

I hate stuff that adds to my terrible black-magic perception of automatic transmissions, but that's on the list...

Maybe the Sea Foam gets beyond just knocking crud off its happy resting places into the works, and actually breaks it down and helps it not plug everything up... I wonder what the "magic crud" in a long-unserviced auto trans is made of? Burnt fluid and friction material? If you change fluid often enough, does this never happen?

I've long heard the stories about near dead transmissions dying from a flush or new fluid as well. Understand the reasoning, can't say I really go along with it.

Not that this one has a transmission on the edge of death, or suffering from tarred up fluid. Just older fluid that should be changed.

Unless there is glitter in the fluid, or its very burnt, changing it wont hurt.

I would HIGHLY recommend the filter and fluid be changed after running a solvent through a trans.

ShadowSix wrote: I think Seafoam is on the short list of snake oils that actually work, BUT I've always been told that an old transmission that hasn't been regularly serviced (basically every auto box in the country over 100k miles) should NOT be serviced because the gunk might be all that's holding it together. Wouldn't this exacerbate the problem? Oldtimers have told me stories of tired autos that pulled into the bay for a trans service (flush and fill) and never moved again under their own power. Myth?

I think the key is what many "old timers" refer to as a trans service: a flush and fill, and they consider a flush to be a power flush. I've never heard of a power flush being a good thing. It either does no harm or screws the transmission up beyond saving. The service manuals say to drain fluid and re-fill so I think that's as far as you should take it. I've never had or heard of a standard drain and re-fill as causing any problems even on a very tired transmission.

I ended up using some lucas trans fix in mine... it would slip at anything beyond 1/4 throttle... that was over a year ago... the shifting is still a little finicky but it doesn't slip.

hope to swap to my low mile trans in a few weeks (moving to a house with a garage soon) but i've been amazed at the lucas snake oil

dculberson wrote: I think the key is what many "old timers" refer to as a trans service: a **flush** and fill, and they consider a flush to be a power flush. I've never heard of a power flush being a good thing. It either does no harm or screws the transmission up beyond saving. The service manuals say to drain fluid and re-fill so I think that's as far as you should take it. I've never had or heard of a standard drain and re-fill as causing any problems even on a very tired transmission.

Absolutely correct. Power flushing = bad.