How much are we paying for transmission fluid drain and fill at the dealership/Quick Lane?

[jonsfiend]

Honestly, I like the BS and the community but a part of me does miss Honda quality and attention to details. I also have considered swapping out for a BL but I know financially that's not a good decision.

cheaper to swap into a BSBL than a Honda SUV at the moment they are not very affordable anymore

Sponsored

 

[davidg4781]

cheaper to swap into a BSBL than a Honda SUV at the moment they are not very affordable anymore

Very true. If I were to do that, I’d want to make sure I get the options I want on it. When I bought my BSBB, it was rather impulsive and I just bought what they had on the lot. I’m also tempted with a big Bronco but don’t have the need and I’d want a 2 door.

 

[Glamdring70]

I'm a fan of DIY when you can, but you're looking at $50 in parts and the better part of a day with tools and jacks to remove stuff to drain and then properly refill a sensitive part of the machine. $200 more for the labor sounds like a lot, but feels a fair price to me because the tech is probably using at least an hour of shop time and tools. If you trust your tech to do it right. At 300 or 400 I would for sure use a day of my time to do this.

 

[rocks]

Very true. If I were to do that, I’d want to make sure I get the options I want on it. When I bought my BSBB, it was rather impulsive and I just bought what they had on the lot. I’m also tempted with a big Bronco but don’t have the need and I’d want a 2 door.

I'm itching for a two door too. The one I want is $57K.

 

[davidg4781]

I'm itching for a two door too.

I don't think I like the wheels on the Base and the Badlands is out of my range and not needed. It would be fun but in South Texas, a Honda Fit will get me to the same places.

 

[rugedraw]

I bought the Motorcraft tranny fluid to do a drain & fill on our BS. I brought it to the shop at work to have one of the techs here do it for me and when we popped the hood, we saw (what we though was) tranny fluid on top of the bell shousing. So we didn't touch it and I took it to the dealer to have it looked at. Tech notes are below:

Crankshaft rear seal was leaking with only 15k miles.

 

[davidg4781]

Alright so I sent them a message through their online portal. I got a guy call me back with a number from the neighboring city (they also have one of these dealerships). He didn't say he wanted to talk about service prices so I'm guessing someone came in and wants to buy my BS. So that'S BS.

But I did call my local one. Brake and transmission fluid change... $323. Honestly, pretty reasonable. And yeah, I know it's cheaper for me to do it myself. But I don't want to. So Monday, they're going to do that and change my oil.

 

[incavulator]

The manual actually specifies to do it much more frequently if you meet certain use cases. One of which being.... Traffic. The 100-150k recommendation, in my opinion, is a complete joke and is only meant to meet environmental regulations.

The manual does say to change the trans fluid sooner for certain use cases, but it specifically calls this out if the primary use is towing or using a car-top carrier. It does not mention traffic (for changing the trans fluid, anyway). Excerpt from the owner's manual is shown below.

However, I DO agree that based on the amount of transmission issues I've seen on this forum, and considering the fact that this transmission has no easily replaceable filter, which is a poor design in my opinion, more frequent fluid changes are likely helpful AS LONG AS someone doesn't screw something up in the process.

I think Dude or Mark S provided an appropriate warning about this in an older post. Anytime someone works on a vehicle, there is the potential for unintended consequences, so make sure the risk vs. the benefit analysis makes sense for your particular situation (DIY, paying a shop/dealer, etc.).

I have been working in the auto industry as a powertrain engineer for 34 years. Based on my experience, manufacturers are not extending these service intervals for environmental reasons. I have seen it done because more and more customers like to think of their cars as an appliance.

They aren't interested in doing maintenance. They just want to put gas in them and drive them. Maintenance is viewed as an inconvenience and unwanted expense, and this is an attempt to meet that desire. While there have been technology improvements that allow some of these intervals to be extended to a certain degree, I believe they've gone too far with some things such as the recommended oil change interval.

On the next page, it DOES talk about extensive idling or low-speed driving for long distances, but it references delivery, taxi, patrol car, or livery use. Some manufacturers used taxi and police vehicles for real world durability testing. I doubt most members on here meet these requirements, but if you do, obviously the 30,000 mile change IS recommended.

It also recommends trans fluid changes at 30K if used in dusty or sandy conditions, and as mentioned above, with all the failures reported, it seems like this probably not a bad idea AS LONG AS nothing else is harmed in the process.

As with many things automotive related, doing it wrong can sometimes be worse than not doing it at all.

 

[Dude]

The key words in that section are extensive idling or low-speed driving for long distances

the ‘such as’ statement is only giving a few examples

My reading of that section is that driving in city traffic with lots of stop and go does falls into the every 30k recommendation

 

[incavulator]

Without a definition, I guess it's open to interpretation. The "safe" answer is use the more rigorous interval (30K), but I'll tell you that when I was involved with the Vegas taxi fleets at Ford, they almost NEVER shut those cars off.

We had routines that required a key cycle to complete and they wouldn't run for months on end. That would be my definition of extensive idling, having direct experience with the fleets they used to use. If the people who wrote that portion of the owner's manual were referencing that type of usage as their "such as" taxi example (it does say "HEAVY commercial use"), I can say I've never met a non-fleet customer who treats their vehicle like those groups did.

All that being said, I know my personal BS usage is NOTHING like any of those examples, but I'm still planning to change mine at 30K just to be safe. I already bought the fluid.

 

[Stircrazy]

I’ve seen a lot of people saying to get it done at 30k miles. I’m about 48k. Ford recommends to have it done at 150k.

Usually I follow the manufacturer’s recommendations but I figured I’d get this done a bit early for peace of mind.

I have the maintance package and their schedual they use does it every 48000km which is about 30000 miles. I just had my second one done today at my 96000km service along with sparkplugs. so what is in out maintenace schedual in the manual is different from what ford does, so maybe look at the extream service schedual, that seems to be what they follow for my maintenance plan. they also did the spark plugs which jives with what was just posted as extream service, in the book it lists it at 160000km

 

[jj1]

Honestly, I like the BS and the community but a part of me does miss Honda quality and attention to details. I also have considered swapping out for a BL but I know financially that's not a good decision.

I literally traded in a 2026 Honda passport elite for my 2025 BSSQ because of many quality issues. The Honda was such a disappointment you wouldn’t believe.

 

[Robins21]

The manual does say to change the trans fluid sooner for certain use cases, but it specifically calls this out if the primary use is towing or using a car-top carrier. It does not mention traffic (for changing the trans fluid, anyway). Excerpt from the owner's manual is shown below.

However, I DO agree that based on the amount of transmission issues I've seen on this forum, and considering the fact that this transmission has no easily replaceable filter, which is a poor design in my opinion, more frequent fluid changes are likely helpful AS LONG AS someone doesn't screw something up in the process.

I think Dude or Mark S provided an appropriate warning about this in an older post. Anytime someone works on a vehicle, there is the potential for unintended consequences, so make sure the risk vs. the benefit analysis makes sense for your particular situation (DIY, paying a shop/dealer, etc.).

I have been working in the auto industry as a powertrain engineer for 34 years. Based on my experience, manufacturers are not extending these service intervals for environmental reasons. I have seen it done because more and more customers like to think of their cars as an appliance.

They aren't interested in doing maintenance. They just want to put gas in them and drive them. Maintenance is viewed as an inconvenience and unwanted expense, and this is an attempt to meet that desire. While there have been technology improvements that allow some of these intervals to be extended to a certain degree, I believe they've gone too far with some things such as the recommended oil change interval.

I am there with you, I worked in the automotive field in new car dealerships in the service departments for 25 years (1978 - 2003) people just want to drive the vehicles & not spend the money to maintain them & then scream when they break at 75K mile because they did not want to maintain them. All I know is if I am spending that kind of money on a new vehicle I am going to maintain it whether the dealer or I service it.

 

[rocks]

I literally traded in a 2026 Honda passport elite for my 2025 BSSQ because of many quality issues. The Honda was such a disappointment you wouldn’t believe.

Wow! Then you buy a BS that has a history of issues.
My brother has a '26 Passport Trailsport Elite and it's been fine.

 

[Sandman]

How much are y'all paying for your transmission fluid changes at Quick Lane? We have a new Quick Lane with a couple of new workers. They seem friendly and mean well but when I first asked, they wanted to give me a drain and fill that was going to be near $500. The other worker said no, he's just wanting drain and fill, look it up this way, blah blah, and I got quoted about $260. I thought that was a bit high but whatever, I didn't have the time that day.

Going back later, the one that helped wasn't around (I believe she's the manager) and we're back again to $350 for parts before labor for a flush, and they only do flushes. I called a couple of other dealers in the area and I'm getting $350+ again for flushes when all I want is a drain and fill.

Any suggestions? Does Ford not do drain and fills?

And yes, I know I can do it myself because you can't trust the stealership... I'm not interested in that.

People need to take in consideration that labor rates are approximately 100 bucks an hour now. I watched the video provided by an owner on here. I don’t have a sufficient safe lift you have to buy a small suction pump drain it and replace with new fluid. By the time you buy everything you need it’s already near a couple hundred bucks. If they do it it’s warranted work. Otherwise they can question it if you do it yourself. In my experience dealing with numerous warranty issues they fight most of them unless you complain to corporate. It’s always an exhausting process.

Sponsored