Hey everyone,

So 9 months ago I did the ATF bypass and it came back to haunt me. I was getting ready to merge onto the 110 highway in downtown LA during rush hour, aka hell on earth, when all of a sudden I had a loss of power. The engine would rev high, but only up 5mph of forward movement. Luckily the onramp had a breakdown section where I was able to pull off and wait for the tow truck to arrive.

After taking the pathy to the shop to see what the caused the issue it was a blown ATF hose. The stock hose that you use to reroute the ATF back into the trans cooler burst open while trying to get onto the highway. Funny thing is that I was wondering why the Tesla driving behind did an abrupt stop as soon as the engine lost power.

I lost about 1.5 liters of fluid that sprayed down the onramp and the undercarriage of the pathy. I'm assuming this is due to it being in the same stock position for years and all of a sudden it has to fit into a different bend.

So word of advice, if you are doing the ATF bypass with a 100k+ miles R51 buy a new hose to be on the safe side.

This actually happened to me as well. I did the bypass and thought I verified that the hoses were secure. I reused the old clamps and replaced the old hose with some bulk transmission hose from AutoZone. Went on a 320 mile 5 hour drive. Before I got to where I was going, I stopped to put gas at a gas station about a few blocks away. When I went to drive off, I noticed that the engine would rev and then the trans would catch and lurch the vehicle forward. Got to my destination and noticed that the new hose was thicker than the factory one and therefore didn't clamp down as tight as it should have. I replaced the clamps with the traditional screw type and refilled my lost fluid haven't had an issue since. It's been about 7 months and about 8000 miles later and still working well with no leaks.

Long story short, triple check ALL the hose connections should you choose to do the bypass.