What's the difference between flushing and draining tranny fluid/oil?

So let me explain myself a bit. I'm a dumb 17 year old kid that inherited my mom's old car (2001 Ford Escape XLT V6) I only know a few things about cars and working on them… Very few things. Me being 17 and just now getting a job I can't afford to spend $1500 for another mechanic to rip me off, trust me every single mechanic we've had to look at the car and fix it a week later had the same problem again if not more problems. So my mom never really maintained this vehicle. She never changed her tranny fluid and the car is at about 203,000 miles so I was told not to flush it but to drain it. What's the difference? How do I drain it? This car also has a really bad vacuum leak, how do I find the vacuum and fix it? The car has an oil leak and the mechanics want 2k to fix it. The car also has a freon leak so I have no AC which sucks because I live in FL. The also has an electrical problem which I'm not too worried about at the moment. I'm mainly worried about fixing the vacuum leak, the freon leak, draining the tranny fluid and oil, maybe the oil leak and I'll worry about the other stuff later. Should I drain the tranny fluid if it's never been drained/flushed for 203,000 miles? What's the difference between draining and flushing? Any help that isn't negative would be greatly appreciated! I'm trying to take some initiative by learning how to do this stuff myself. Please and thank you!

Well, draining the transmission is when someone takes the trans pan bolts out and drops the pan and let's all the fluid drain and simply changes filter and replaces pan gasket, then fills the trans back up. A trans flush is when someone takes the trans lines loose going into the radiator and hooks it up to a machine that flushes the trans to clean it of impurities. On high mileage vehicles a flush isn't recommended because it can blow out seals and o rings leading to trans failure. A simple trans drain should be alright. Also, as for the vacuum leak, you need to identify where it is. Is it a vacuum line broken? Intake manifold leak? Its hard to tell you what to do without looking at the car. Sorry I couldn't be more informative about that. Anyways, good luck and I hope you get it running good.

So, if the car has gone over 200k miles without changing the transmission fluid, what do you hope to gain by changing it now? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! It can only lead to more problems. The car isn't going to last that much longer anyway, so don't mess with what works.

Nurse this car along until you save enough to replace it. It is used up and needs tons of expensive maintenance. Don't waste any money trying to patch it up now.

If your'e going to drain the trans, get a pan to catch the fluid that's bigger than the trans pan. Fluid will leak all over. I use a trash can lid. As for the AC, don't use any of that stop leak stuff. For the small percentage of units that it actually works on, it also can lock up the compressor. Then you'll have to replace something that wasn't broke in the first place.