Manufacturers are notorious understating maintenance items for automatic transmissions, like "lifetime" fluids and skipping filter changes. A typical manual ma

Manufacturers are notorious understating maintenance items for automatic transmissions, like "lifetime" fluids and skipping filter changes. A typical manual maintenance schedule will keep the gearbox running for a very long time. The typical automatic maintenance schedule will keep it alive for its "lifetime", but that lifetime ends up being a few hundred thousands miles and instead of more maintenance at the end of that interval, you end up with a dead transmission.