My son’s car contains a fair amount of “Made by Monkeys” logic. One good example (or not so good, in my case) of this logic has to do with the transmission. It’s a 2001 Pontiac Grand Am, with more than 100,000 miles on it.
He came home from college last week and said that the car wasn’t running right, so I hopped in and took it for a spin. Sure enough, when you stepped on the accelerator, the transmission would spin far too freely.
Being a weekend mechanic, my first reference source is usually the Internet, preferably a source with a video. Unfortunately, there was no video available to help solve our problem, but there was a lot of advice in the user forums.
The first thing the forums had me check was the transmission fluid level. That seemed simple enough, so I went out to the car to look for the dipstick. It’s always at the back of the engine, near the firewall, right? And yes, I know the car has to be running, warm, and on flat ground (my dad taught me that way back when I got my first car). After more than a few minutes of searching for that dipstick, I came back to the Internet to find out where that bugger was hidden.
It turns out that this model (and most cars these days) has no dipstick due to the transmission being pressurized. The only way to check the level is to get under the car, find and remove some tiny screw, and see if any fluid spills out. While doing this, all I could think of is, “there has to be a better way.”
We did that, and sure enough, nothing came out, so we knew more fluid was needed. After searching for the filler cap for a while, I finally discovered it buried down in the engine compartment. When I reached in to remove it, I burned my hand. It’s nearly impossible to remove the cover -- and even harder to put it back on -- without removing a significant amount of skin from your hand.
But we did it, and the car now runs a lot better than it did before. I assume the skin on my hand will grow back in no time.
Tell us your experiences with Monkey-designed products. Send stories to Jennifer Campbell for Made by Monkeys.
Pardon me, but I respectfully disagree with the idea of "lifetime", "everlasting", "long duration", or "permanent" fluids. A given car "designer" can of course, decide a newer fluid could have an "extended" life... but another one with higher worries about warranty claims will include some kind of exceptions to the owner's manual... that usually take the form of: "In severe conditions..." or "in fleet service...", or "In hot and dusty conditions..." or anything similar phrase to cover himself and conserve his employment.
I kindly invite you to get your hands dirty and do a transmission service yourself. Independently of what says the ATF bottle sticker, the shop manual or the owner's manual, what you will see is more or less the same picture of the image I'm attaching: the magnet inside the pan will have a "Sea Orchid" appearance. Those 'spines'are metallic dust or very fine "shavings" suspended in thick mud, aligned like spines by the magnetic field. This photo was taken after 50,000 miles of driving, well before any transmission symtoms appear, and the metallic contents (3/4 teaspoon) are considered "normal" for a properly working transmission with this much use. Wear particles come from clutch packs, sliding bands and a very little part, from actual gear wear. Now, NO known transmission filter has a 100% efficiency in filtering small size particles, as size and pressure loss constraints product of the limited available space effectively limit the area/volume of the replaceable filter inside the pan. After such mileage, ATF appearance has changed from light Cherry-Red transparent looks, to very dark reddish brown opaque color. Smell is quite different. Now, viscosity is appreciably changed, but Viscosity Index is way down, surface tension is up, solid contents are way-way up. The ATF has lost its "light ends", and has much more heavier hydrocarbons, hard carbon and long chain residues. It simply DOES NOT lubricate as well as new fluid, its heat transfer properties limit this task and the fluid is no longer able to remove and transfer the heat load anymore, so that the operating temperature goes up in a vicious cycle. If you believe that "modern" ATF's can take the abuse and still perform like new after 40,000 miles or so, be forewarned your transmission is prone to fail and needing a complete rebuild. Fine if you want to trash the vehycle after 4-5 years or so. It only takes one severe overheating episode to start the degradation, and it wouldn't need to be when hauling a heavy trailer, as a very hot day in stalled traffic for longer than a couple of hours will get the ATF very hot, owing to ever reducing frontal air intake openings, heavier cars that still have a transmission designed years ago for lighter vehicles. I very much prefer the tried and true dipstick than any optimistic claim that the new marvelous fluid is permanent. (I just remembered the thousands of damaged engines because of too optimistic "DEXCOOL" claimed advantages!). AND while newer "synthetic formulations" of ATF's can have better hi-temp properties, they have their limits too, and cannot perform well after an additional 20-30% more miles, because they will become contaminated by metallic wear products (clutch pack wear IS an unavoidable fact of life, independently of what overly confident product advertisers wish to convey). I have two old MOPAR vehicles that are the envy of the local dealer (where I only go to buy the original ATF and/or Coolant, as I have done some tests at my workplace and found them to be high-quality when compared to commercial aftermarket offerings). I believe that the statements in several places on typical Owner's Manuals are deliberately written to prevent overly worried novice owners from becoming too concerned and taking too much time from dealers with over exaggerated concerns. In reality, ATF color and smell is still very valuable and a practical means to quickly distinguish if an ATF is too degraded without having to run expensive specialized laboratory tests. The fast rule is: New ATF shoud be transparent, light Cherry Red color, and has a characteristic odor (you can open a bottle to get an idea). Still good but used ATF will appear as brick-red to light brown or reddish brown color whennot accompanied by a foul strong-burnt odor. Overheated and degraded ATF will not have any of the reddish tinge, being totally dark brown to black color. Amclaussen.
AMClaussen wrote: "I kindly invite you to get your hands dirty and do a transmission service yourself. Independently of what says the ATF bottle sticker, the shop manual or the owner's manual, what you will see is more or less the same picture of the image I'm attaching: the magnet inside the pan will have a "Sea Orchid" appearance."
AM, I have done this several time. In fact. my son had the same Pontiac referred to in the original post, with a side plug and no dipstick or filler tube, and I helped him with that.
I sold the 1969 Dodge Custom Sportvan at 21 years, in 1990. The transmission never needed service. I got rid of the Chevy Lumina APV with 185,000 miles. The transmission never needed service. I have had a couple of other high mileage cars but they were manual transmission units.
I don't see how to access the image you referred to.
I can vouch for that. A divorced friend who calls from time to time called--quite worried--one day after a long hard drive. Colored fluid was running from beneath her car. I asked whether it was coolant or transmission fluid. She didn't know. I asked whether it was green or red. She couldn't tell. I told her to put a tiny dab on her finger and report whether it smelled/tasted sweet or oily. She replied "oily."
"Aha," I said. "You had an oil change yesterday, just before you left on your trip, didn't you? And you used that filling station near your house, right?"
"How did you know?" she asked.
I explained about expansion of transmission fluid and how to check it. Her car was still warm and she checked it on the spot. The level was right on. It had blown off the excess on the highway.
She asked how the transmission could have gotten overfilled and I explained the facts of life--expensive mechanics don't change oil or fix flats; high school dropouts do. She was stunned to learm about the "highly-qualified technicians" working on her car. Don't you hate to disillusion someone like this?
Sorry, I can't figure how to upload the image tof the pan taken with my cellphone and stored in my PC... I'll try to send it attached to an email message, but then I would need to show your email address, and that is not a good idea cause anybody would have it... sorry, I've never put an image here!
Well, my dipstick clearly shows both the COLD and HOT zones, aided by small holes that help a lot in showing where is the edge of the wetted zone in low light... Also the Owner's manual shows a drawing of the dipstick end which is so clear I can hardly imagine a dumb enough person unable to understand it (pardon me, I was forgetting the Monkey-type of individual!
Now, on the "fill for life" recommendation, it is as vague as to be useless, as how hard is hard use? Some hill climbing is as hard or harder than towing, but most people I know feel that any car would perfectly climb those. (The typical 'sunday ride' where every one on board is completely distracted and not paying the least bit of attention on the temp dash indicator... if the car ever had it!!!)
My guess is more toward the classic recently graduated "genius engineer" that dreams of receiving a company congratulation for proposing a reduction of the fabrication cost a couple of cents, multiplied by the many thousands of vehicles... as so on.
I trust the "lifetime" tranny fluid as much as the "lifetime" tie rod ends that never seem to last more than a year or two ... unless one is smart enough to put a zerk in them just like the old ones that lasted a long, long time as long as they got a little grease every so often. Problem is, the automotive industry consistently gets away with nonsense that no other industry could ever survive.
Larry M. said, "I explained the facts of life--expensive mechanics don't change oil or fix flats; high school dropouts do."
Please clarify that statement being applied only to the quickie lube & service places. Professional shops and fleet service specialists do a lot of oil changes and tire patching - only a fool turns down easy money and any company not willing to pay for professional level "service" usually isn't in business very long and at best they're not very profitable.
Clarify? Sure. I was referring to filling stations with a lube bay or two on the side, but I will concede that my statement also applies to quickie oil change places.
I get just as angry as anyone about stupid designs that prevent, or at the very least, make normal maintenance more difficult, but I do not think it is a conspiracy by the various car companies. Sometimes "GOOD IDEAS" are fraught with unintended or unforeseen consequences. I would be willing to wager that not one engineer/designer reading these posts has not had a mistake or two the someone down the line has blasted as stupid. Early in my career, my first foreman told me, " The only guy who never makes a mistake, is the guy who never does anything, but if you keep making the same mistakes, you will be looking for a new job."
In short, all I know is that with very few exceptions, my new cars/trucks are better than the ones they replaced. I get better mileage and more consistant service. I have never had any vehicle that could accelerate like my 71 Buick Skylark, nor ride as smooth on the highway as my 67 Olds Delmont 88, but both of those vehcles were finished well before 100,000 miles, but I have not had a vehicle since that hasn't crossed that threshold.
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