cwolaw

Had an interesting event this weekend with Transmission on my 2003 GS300. Let's put aside that I allowed Jiffy Lube to "power flush" my transmisison fluid about a month ago. (I know, mistake number 1).

Anyway, the fluid at that time had 140K on it. After flush, burnt smell gone and fluid is the color it should be again. No issue or problem in the last month. They remove the lines where it goes into the radiator, hook up connectors, and replace the "spec'd" number of quarts of fluid that is called for. New fluid was clearly Red, old was black! Sight tubes on their machine matched "quantity in vs quantity out".

This weekend, approx. two hours into a trip, I stopped at a rest area, and noticed smoke coming out from underr the car. Smell was clearly trans fluid. A significant amount was all under the vehicle and smoke was being caused by the fluid hitting the exhaust.

I checked the trans fluid level, expecting to find it low and fearing I had blown the trans seal. The dip stick showed a VERY VERY High level of fluid! How could this be??? I'm talking half way up the stick high. I had to continue the trip. The car sat for a few hours. I made the trip back home and even stopped a couple times, to see if I was still blowing fluid. No Smoke, no noticable major leak.

This morning, fluid level check revealed high level, but only about an inch over the "hot" mark on the stick with engine warmed up.

Any clues what the heck happended?

porn-adkt

iTrader: (37)

Overfilled

burny

it was overfulled

repugnante

Yep, overfilled tranny. Drain it down a bit before you ruin your seals. This is why drain and refill method is recommened with that kind of mileage....but of course, you knew that already

raytseng

can you confirm your technique that you are measuring the fluid? (Engine on or off?).

It doesn't make sense that everything is fine for 1month; then you get symptoms of overfilling, so that may be too obvious an answer

DosyBoy

iTrader: (1)

No No No No No, u DO NOT flush these cars trannies, you get what u can get out, and refill, this was told to me by a lexus tech who did mine 2 months ago........NO PROBLEMS, its overfilled take some out ASAP

cwolaw

Been traveling and first time I've had an chance to get back to this.
I checked it with the engine off, but at operating temp. Now that I think back a lot of years, aren't I supposed to check the level with the engine running?

Also, I haven't driver the car much since the event, and debating, to do I take it back to JL and bring it to their attention, and maybe hold the responsible for the over-fill, or cut my looses and deal with it myself, even if I have now blown the seals to some extent?

raytseng

For this particular car, level is checked with engine running. But procedure is different for different cars, so don't take it as a rule of thumb.

So the level may not be overfilled, and all the posts and theories above are wrong.

Check level again at hot and going through the gears once while parked with engine on.
Do be careful as engine is running, and also fan may kick on or off at any time.

cwolaw

Thanks again! So, is it possible, that the "flush" from Jiffy Lube, and the introduction of "fresh fluid", managed to clean up some internal junk and cause a tempoary blockage somewhere in the lines, thus, causing the pressure to build up and blow some excess through the seal??

raytseng

Or maybe you just ran over a bottle of old fluid someone threw on the road and splattered all over the underside of your car.

Get an accurate measurement, and figure out if you have a leak first before jumping to conclusions.

KSSupra

So did you just drain the over filled amount and that was it? Or did you actually cause a seal to start leaking and then had to replace a seal? BTW this exact thing happened to me over the weekend. the fluid was new when i bought the car so I am assuming it was flushed and now the level is high and was good for about 2 months of me owning this before it happened. Transmission shift and runs great without issue other than the leak that happened and i noticed the Level being about a inch higher than what it should be in the hot level.

PLEASE tell me is it ok just to drain some out?

or

Do i have to to replace the seal that its leaking from as well?

IF SO

what seal would it be and how many seals are on this transmission? as far as ones that would leak from this incident?

bonesnj0

Take out to normal level, Then if it happens again I would clean undercarriage and find out where its leaking.

ttaylor993

It sounds like you didn't notice the overfilled condition until the trip. When you overfill a tranny enough sometimes the fluid foams. Incorporating that air will cause the volume of fluid to increase even more. Could be the sustained high rpm of the trip caused the fluid to foam enough to come out of the filler tube. So you may not have a leaky seal after all. First thing is to remove the excess fluid (ASAP). Remove about a half-quart at a time from the cooler line. Be sure to check the fluid while the car is running and in Park. But shift thru Drive and Reverse before doing so. Once you get the fluid down to the proper level, clean everything up, then you can check to see if you have any leaky seals the way bonsnj0 described.