Postby khaosduke » Sun Oct 14, 2012 12:42 pm
I think this is part of the problem. It's very difficult to see signs *before* your transmission fails. I've been monitoring my ATF for a while now. The problem is this:
Your transmission holds a lot of fluid. Around 10-11 quarts. All that fluid is circulated and caught inside the intricate components of the transmission, torque converter, clutch packs, gears etc... This is why you change only about 4 quarts when you drain and refill the ATF.
If the radiator has a tiny crack and is leaking into the transmission, it's going to get sucked right into the transmission and into those crevices. You may not see anything in the dip stick for a little while.
That being said, by the time you feel your transmission having problems; most of the time it's too late. There is already enough coolant in there to cause a problem (it doesn't take much). And you may not see it in the dipstick.
From what I've been reading on these forums. There is another complication. Because your transmission is so complex there a wide variety of problems which could manifest itself due to the contamination. Ranging from:
Loss of power
Erratic shifting
Noise
Slipping gears
Hard shifting
Even these can be difficult to keep track of 100%. For example, you may not realize loss of power due to the transmission not shifting into a later gear properly simply because you get used to just smashing the throttle early on, until you realize later that you need to give it more and more gas to correct.
Or you may not notice erratic shifting simply because you don't see feel any hard shifting. The transmission may not want to shift into gear and when it does it doesn't slam into them so you brush it off as a minor glitch.
I'm not a mechanic by any means and welcome anyone to correct anything I've mentioned. But I'm just trying to make a point that it's difficult to see any concrete tell tale signs of *upcoming* failure. Once you see a problem, most of the time it's too late.