LA 135?? If so probably the K46 trans. It is listed as unserviceable but there is a huge posting about how to rebuild them. Just search for "K46 repair guide with pictures" Here is a link that might be useful: K46 rebuild

tetonper, I have a DSG 6500 with the 6 spd. manual. I'm a newbie compared to most of the guys on this forum but I LOVE my little tractor! To my mind the 6 spd is more rugged. A lot depends on what you use it for. Is your property hilly or flat? Do you use a lot of ground engaging implements or mostly just mowing? Hilly and ground engaging I would go with the manual. Hydro's tend to die on the hills. Relatively flat and just mowing the hydro should be fine. Regardless, if you get the hydro don't believe the "no maintainence required" propaganda. If I had purchased a more expensive tractor like a JD or Kubota I would not be as worried about the hydro but with Craftsman I needed to be as bullet proof as I could. I have a sleeve hitch and a moldboard plow, a JBJr on the front and multiple other attachments so mowing is only a small part of the jobs I do with my tractor. Have fun in your search! There are also some good used deals out there if you know what you are doing. I didn't when I bought so I went new.

This towing with automatic versus manual transmissions showed up as far back as 1978. As I recall, when Chrysler introduced the econobox Omni/Horizon vehicles with the little 4 clinder engines, these had the same recommendation: Towing recommended only with the automatic transmission. It had to do with the sustained rating of the transmissions and clutch combinations. I'm not sure which details are causing the restriction, but I can hazard a guess. There isn't much room for the clutch/transmission assembly in front drive autos. Typcially, automatic trasnmissions use sun-and-planet gear sets while manual transmissions use the usual simple gear sets, either of spur or helical teeth arranged on a pair of shafts. A tpical planetary gear set has three planetary gears meshing with a central "sun" gear, thus the load is shared among three sets of gear teeth per stage, whereas for the simple gear set, there is only one set of teeth to carry the load. The planet-sun gear set has the potential to carry heavier loads than a simple gear set depending on tooth design and size. The second factor may be a clutch limitation. The clutch must start both the car and tow load from a standstill. This involves a considerable amount ot slippage, then finally gripping tigthly and locking the cranksaft to the drive train. Clutches contain a set of compression springs arranged in a circle to act as torque pulse absorbers. These springs are preloaded and do not flex until torque exceeds the preload value. Under crusing conditions, these torque springs do not flex, but stay at their prelaoded length. Add an additional tow load and these springs may come into play while pulling a hill or accelerating. This extra flexing is beyond their intended operating condition and may cause clutch assembly failure. The standard clutch supplied for a small car simply may not have the rating to start up a load larger than the vehicle itself, and when so used, its life is shortened. Also, there may not be enough room to enlarge the clutch for a larger rating. It may be a matter of ecomonics for the manufacturer. He may have decided that small cars can't tow very large loads anyway, and believes that, in his market, most owners don't buy these cars for towing, therefore, he decides to design only one of the transmissions for some towing capability. In regard to gear ratio differences, I haven't investigated today's offerings, but I remember past practices. Before "lock-up" torque convertors, for a given car model, the final ratio for the automatic was a little "higher geared", e.g., assuming if there were no slip, the engine truned less revs per wheel rotation for automatics than for manuals. However, when crusing, there is about 5% to 10% speed difference between the input and output of the torque convertor. The final gear ratio was adjusted so that at steady cruise on a flat terrain, the engine rpms were comparable between an automatic or manual equipped vehicle. The adjustment was made in the differential gear set. The differentials for automatics were higher geared than for a manuals. However, the use of a lock-up clutch on the torque convertor puts a new slant on gearing theory. The lockup clutch eliminates torque convertor slip at cruising.

Every car needs attention, but rarely do two otherwise identical cars need the exact same services. Yet when at the dealer, quick lubes, and especially many of the chain stores you will see this "flush this and flush that" mentality. Business consultants have pushed for the last decade or so that as a business "You can't make money fixing cars", you need to sell services. Their programs allow for one or two top technicians inside the organization who actually can fix cars. Then a few techs who are on the road to becoming a journeymen technicians, and then essentially entry level people which are of course on the low end of the pay scale. If the shop gives an entry level person even average difficulty work, the chance of a mistake occurring where the car has to come back is quite high. So they have in effect created an entire list of services that can be sold and performed where little to no experience is required by the tech and therefore they have a very low chance of a mistake occurring. These flush services are more profitable per hour than the shop can charge for major repairs. Consider this the second part of Newtons law, " where for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". All of the price shopping for major repairs has stripped the profitability out of them, and at a dealer warranty work really tears the GP out of the equation. As a business they need a constant revenue stream to keep their doors open because true to the consultants description, they don't make money actually fixing broken cars so these services are sold and performed by an entry level group in order to subsidize the business when doing the more difficult, and especially warranty type repairs. Now do you need the differentials flushed, and the transmission serviced, injectors cleaned, etc? The fluid services are something I could only tell by looking at your owners manual, and by checking the conditions of the fluids myself. The problem here is even then the best that I can do is still subject to being a "subjective opinion". The injectors would only REQUIRE cleaning if your car was presenting a drive-ability symptom, otherwise, a bottle of cleaner once a year is just fine. A road test with the scan tool would show me if there was any chance of this being needed. The differentials are a simple drain and refill BTW, complete with easy to access drain and fill plugs (dipstick in some cases). Throttle body service? Easy to tell just by looking, as well as by watching the PCM control the idle speed with a scan tool. Many cars have a minimum idle speed, and the idle can be commanded with a scan tool to the lowest speed that the engine can reach. If the engine reaches the minimum idle speed without stalling, then the answer is "No", you don't require servicing. But consider this, the consultants have said its cheaper for the customer and the business to simply sell the service, than it is to employ and pay a technician who can and will perform the steps to test this and find out. You have seen price pressure from other posters here in this forum through the years that are the basis for the consultants advising the way they do. (Newtons Law again, that was the original action). Dollars and cents. The technician replacing a crankshaft in an engine is making the business around $100/hr gross profit while he costs the business $25-35 including benefits to be doing the repair. The flush routines can produce well over $250/hr gross profit for the business with close to minimum wage employees doing them. The crankshaft repair has a high risk of failure, the flushes extremely low risk. From that perspective, the consultants are correct. Anyone wonder why its difficult to find a real good technician/mechanic?