HOW TO CHECK YOUR GEAR OIL / ATF LEVEL

To check your ATF (Automatic transmissions fluid), first pop open your car bonnet or hood then go to the front of your opened hood, facing its engine compartment, search for the dipstick meant for your Automatic transmission or gear box. This is usually found on your right hand of the engine compartment that you are facing. It can also sometimes be found in other locations depending on the engine’s positioning.

The dipstick is a long flat or round surface, flexible aluminum rod with a colored plastic head

shooting out to the open.

After locating the transmission dipstick, go back to your car and start it. Let your engine run and warm up for at least 5 minutes idling at a stationary poison or you can drive it around for about 3 minutes. While warming up the engine ensure the gear is shifted from P to N to R and vice versa at least twice.

After warming up your engine, go back to your bonnet and bring out the identified dipstick for examination.

Note if you gauge or check your ATF at engine cold  without going through the above procedure, you will end up getting false result of higher ATF level than the actual level inside your gear box or transmission. This might lead to your thinking there is enough ATF in your transmission or just topping it’s oil up a little more whereas in actual fact you need a lot more oil t6o top it to required level

Also if the gauging is done wrongly you might end up experiencing the same problem you had before toping the oil up thus leading them to taking it to their mechanic who will of course m collect more money from them for repair while all he would have done was a proper gauging and toping up to solve the problem.

Things to look out for while examining the oil on the transmission dipstick for oil quality

1.    Fluid’s Level:  Pull out the dipstick from its hole and immediately take it vertically or diagonally up to get your visual inspections of its tail end while its colored handle is raised high above your head level. If your dipstick is the type with 2 marks, check if your oil level is not on or below the last dot or mark on the tail end of the mark. If it is then you need to top up your oil or change it totally. But if your oil appears at the middle of this 2 marks or on the top most mark, you are good to go.

If your oil is not at the right level, e.g. if it is low, you will be experiencing some delay in gear shift and slippage. Also if the oil is higher above the upper mark, the oil is over filled and the transmission might also experience shifting problems, slippage and noise

2.    Fluid Color: your ATF is meant to be pinkish, light brown or reddish colored fluid if it’s still in good condition. But if you notice it is dark brown in color then you need to change the fluid. Also if you notice a milky looking fluid, then it has mixed with engine coolant and water is a very effective poison to transmissions. 

3.    Fluid Odor: Your ATF in its good state is a pure , sweet smelling fluid but when you perceive the oil on your dipstick and perceive a stinky, burnt smell then you need to change your ATF as soon as possible because the burnt smell is an indication of an overheating transmission and mechanical problem developing due to poor oil integrity.

In the next article we shall explain How to do your oil change accordingly and effectively……………….      

                                                                                                                         

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