Jeep Liberty, ’02. 45RFE transmission.

Dropped the trans pan and replaced the filters this weekend at 80k miles. I had last opened it up at 36k, June 04.

Since then, I have used a vacuum extractor to remove fluid from the pan at each oil change. This worked out to having done it 8 times over that 44k miles. Each time removes a little over 2 quarts.
Trans capacity is 14 quarts, so the entire capacity has been added, plus a little.

The pan was really clean. There was just a small amount of paste to wipe off the pan magnet and hardly anything in the rest of the pan itself.

In addition to the flat intake filter, I replaced the small spin-on return filter as I did previously. This filter is only recommended to replace at 90k miles, so that DOES seem to be overkill. I cut it open and there was no evidence of any crud.

I will keep doing what I’m doing – seems to be working.

Just dropped the pan on mine this afternoon and it was a lot better than I thought it would be - I have 79K on the clock and this is the first service I had done to it. Unfortunately, I got the wrong filter from the auto parts store. I have the 42RLE trans and they listed the 45RFE (and I didn't double-check my build sheet ). So at least I got to see how hard it is, probably wait for a couple of months and do it again with the correct filter. Sounds pretty much like you're describing, a bit of gunk on the magnet but everything else was nice and clean.

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Kevin
AD5VG
Just another red Jeep in the world...
L.O.S.T. #KB051963

On the first tranny fluid change I always install a drain plug, so next time can drain fluid first and is much less hassle dropping pan. The other plus is if you want to drain between filter changes.

same here, makes it much easier without haveing to balance a pan full of fluid removing the last few bolts.

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02' Sport- SOLD

07' Dodge Ram Quad Cab 1500 4x4
Yeah it's got a hemi!