oil looking transmission fluid.

[Christian]

I just bought a 2001 toyota camry le and when checking thr fluids the transmission fluid looks brown,like brand new oil. It does not smell burnt and it shifts perfect. I do not have any history on the car. I have never seen fluid looking like this. I was wondering what this means? Do i need fluid change? It’s a automatic with 128k miles.thanks for your help

Topic

[Andrew Phillips]

The color of automotive fluids, on its own, is generally meaningless. Burnt smells and visible particles (“glitter”) is a different story. Dealerships and shops love that consumers believe that color is an indication of something, but it’s simply not. Your transmission fluid probably turned dark a long, long time ago, perhaps even before it hit 50k miles. Why? All the heat cycles that the fluid goes through as well as particles that get suspended in the fluid from normal wear change its color.

There are two schools of thought on transmission fluid for high mileage cars. Many techs believe, quite rightly, that if you wait too long (meaning mileage, not color) then you should not change the fluid because it could cause transmission failure prematurely; whereas if you had changed it regularly all along it would be “OK”. There are differences of opinion on exactly what that mileage might be, but let’s say it’s 100k for the sake of argument..

The other school of thought is that draining and refilling it with the correct fluid cannot be bad to do, and if the transmission fails that’s because it was going to fail anyway, as long as you don’t get a “flush” — which can involve forcing the old fluid out with pressure. Doing so can dislodge particles that were stuck (in a good way) or force particles into places they don’t belong. For that reason, I don’t think a transmission “flush” is ever a good idea, especially for a higher mileage car. I believe that is what often leads to transmission failure, causing people to believe it’s best not to touch their transmissions.

Another problem is that people often use the wrong fluid when they change it. This even happens at shops, trust me. Often times transmissions, even by the same manufacturer, will use different fluid and the wrong one can cause premature failure. Sometimes people use what is cheap, which can also be a problem for the same reason. Other times people use a “performance” or specialty fluid that they think is better than the OE spec for their car, but those fluids are designed for a wide range of transmissions and therefore are not best for specific applications and needs. Transmission fluids also contain detergents and additives, and sometimes introducing non-OE spec’d detergents to a transmission that has already been broken in for over a hundred thousand miles is not a good idea.

I am of the idea that if you simply drain and refill the transmission with the correct type fluid, you will be alright. Your vehicle’s transmission was designed to use Dexron III. It is obsolete now so Dexron VI is what you should use, if you decide to go ahead with the fluid change. Hope that helps.

[Caleb Stovall]

Beautiful reply.

[Author]

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