Hello all,

I’ve recently bought my truck from my grandparents. It is a very well maintained and just hit 73,000 miles 2013 Silverado LT. What would be the best upgrades for making it run the best for the longest?

 

fluid changes
trans every 50miles, coolant 5 years, diffs and tcase 50miles
engine oil...every 3-4 000miles..don't follow the oil life monitor...the interval is to long.

at least once a year perform a suspension check. good shop does this at every oil change. shops that don't lift the vehicle in the air never check this.

 

Definitely recommend transmission fluid change. But I don't recommend necessarily changing the filter. Why? Because transmissions don't really have a filter. They have strainers. Just to make sure pieces of large metal and/or clutch don't wind up in the transmission hardware. The transmission is basically a sealed unit. Unlike motor oil, it isn't exposed to the outside, it isn't exposed to fuel/exhaust in the pistons, etc. The fluid will definitely break down over time, but it isn't being and doesn't need "Filtering" like motor oil does. I bring this up because as a suggestion when you do a transmission fluid change, while you have the transmission pan off (yes, you might as well change the "Filter" while you're there), but while you're at it, retrofit the fluid pan and put in a drain valve. This way, you can just drain the transmission fluid in the future and won't have to make it a royal PITA. It will be a 10 minute job. Drain and fill. Drain the fluid, MEASURE how much you took out; and pour the SAME AMOUNT of new fluid in through the dip stick filler.

And yes, before anyone says it, draining will only remove between 1/3 and 1/2 of the fluid.But that's not a problem. I do it 3 times. Drain and fill; drive the truck around the block a couple of times (Or let it run in your driveway and go through the gears a bunch of times; I prefer a 5 minute drive). Then drain and fill again. Rinse and repeat and do it a third time. You will have replaced about 85-90% of the fluid doing it this way. This is a lot more than dropping the pan and just replacing the fluid and the filter (Which doesn't need changing). And definitely stay away from doing a transmission fluid FLUSH. Unless you're going to do it yourself and you know what you're doing. Oil change places don't always clean out their flush machine very well, and SOMETIMES other people's junk will now get into yours. Also, many of these flush places don't know the difference between the inlet and outlet tubes of your transmission. Because they flush with their machine and not the vehicle running, if they flush the wrong direction they can hurt valves but mainly push metal that was STRAINED by the so called filter BACK into the pan, back through the transmission fluid cooler, and back into the torque converter/clutch.

Anyway; just my $0.03428483 (inflation)
Mike