2019 Escalade 10L80 transmission fluid change

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jyi786

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I need to do a transmission fluid change for my 2019 Cadillac Escalade ESV. It has the 10 speed 10L80 transmission. I'm at 108K miles. I want to do this myself, but it seems to be much more difficult than I expected.

I got all the parts, and a shop said they would do the pan drop/filter change/refill for $250.00. They said they will NOT do the rest of the fluid exchange, which is from the cooler/torque converter, so I'll have roughly still about 9qts of old fluid.

I'd rather do the change myself, but am not finding any good how-to's on it. I did this procedure on my 2012 Yukon Denali XL's twice. I never dropped the pan, but I did do the "transfusion" by pulling the cooler line from the radiator, letting it dump a quart at a time into a bucket, turning off, filling with a quart, and then repeating the process till the trans fluid ran clean cherry red. Can I do this on my Escalade? Which line do I pull, the left or right side of the cooler at the radiator?

I found this video, but this is for the 6L80. Is it the same procedure for mine?

Then I found this video, which is exactly for mine, but it's way too devoid of the necessary details I'd need to be successful, and I'm not about to play Russian roulette with guessing.

Thanks!
 

SpyShops212

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The dealer charged me $300 to do the transmission service. They wanted $380. I bought the filter, seal and fluid like you but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to drop the pan and change the filter or do a fluid exchange which is what Valvoline offers for $160. I decided to let the dealer do it. When I called I told them I had all the stuff so they charged me $100 less. This is also good because you would have a record if you sell your truck. I wouldn’t do it myself unless I had an expensive fluid exchange machine. I would do the fluid exchange with the machine first then change the filter and fluid.
 
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jyi786

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The dealer charged me $300 to do the transmission service. They wanted $380. I bought the filter, seal and fluid like you but I couldn’t decide if I wanted to drop the pan and change the filter or do a fluid exchange which is what Valvoline offers for $160. I decided to let the dealer do it. When I called I told them I had all the stuff so they charged me $100 less. This is also good because you would have a record if you sell your truck. I wouldn’t do it myself unless I had an expensive fluid exchange machine. I would do the fluid exchange with the machine first then change the filter and fluid.
I'm going to do this in my driveway tomorrow. Good point about doing the fluid exchange first; I'll do that and then the pan drop.
 

SpyShops212

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Did you get the fluid from GM. The ulv. What fluid did you get.
 
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jyi786

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Yep, ULV. That's what was specified in the manual.
 

SpyShops212

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Also you need to get the transmission to a certain temperature range and check the level.
 
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jyi786

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Do you have the fluid exchanger machine?
No fluid exchange machine. The way I'll be doing this is pulling the cooler line from the radiator, draining, the refilling, until it runs cherry red. Just like in the first video. I did this 3 times on my old 2012 Yukon Denali and it worked great.
 

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