Infiniti I30 Shifting Weird - Trans Fluid?

[miccris93]

I've owned my '00 I30 for about 8 months and I love pretty much everything about it. The only thing that I constantly notice is some weird doings by the transmission. If I am not driving for long and "get on" the throttle, the car will hold at about redline for a few moments and kinda harshly go into gear. However, if I drive it for a while (say 4+ hours in a day), then doing the same thing results in a prompt shift from 1 to 2. I also noticed a little bit of flaring between shifts after it was sitting all night (cold New Jersey winters), with the flaring going away during and after my commute (roughly 15 miles total). However, with these few warmer days, it has not been nearly as apparent. A month or two ago when I described this to a mechanic at a local dealer (Ramsey Infiniti, btw the guy said he has the same car and mine is in great shape) while I was getting an O2 sensor, he said it was most likely the transmission fluid, being that it is 12 years old and probably has a bad tendency to thicken a bit due to its age. Does it sound, to anyone, like a trans fluid change (not flush, just taking off the trans cooler return line to get all fluid out) will get rid of out these problems? Car sits with around 33k miles at the moment. Thanks!

Mods, I know I posted this in the I30 section, but I figured I'd get more responses in a section that is for maintenance of all models, not just the I30/Maxima. I apology if this goes against any forum policies.

[Heavy]

that would be the first thing to do, its not going to hurt anything, and seeing the age of the car it should of been done already. If that does not solve your problem then looks like its time for it to come out....

[miccris93]

I don't really see how it could be anything else. In my previous post, I meant that the flaring was really more when it shifts from 2-3. However, all shifts are perfect once it's all warmed up. Hell, >95% of the time I can't even feel it shift, the only way to know is to look at the tach and see if the RPMs drop.