Volkswagen and Audi consider the transmission to be filled for life – considering how many folks sell/total a car before 100k miles, this may well be true. But for the rest of us who enjoy keeping a multikilo buck expenditure around for a while, keeping the transmission happy should be a top priority – diluting fluid which has broken down due to heat, removing wear-in metal particles from the pan magnets, etc. For the most part, just changing the fluid every 30k miles should ensure a long life, with a proper filter change and fluid flush every now and then. Of course, at this point the issue of the “sealed” transmission pops up and ruins everyone’s day. We should be worried about overfilling the tranny, right?
As per the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Don’t Panic. While VW makes a fuss about checking the fluid level between 95-113° F, there’s a reasonable bit of allowance in this specification for a properly operating transmission. During my fluid drain, I started by checking the existing fluid level with the transmission at ambient temperature (around 60° F at the time), theoretically resulting in zero fluid flowing from the level cutout. In reality, about a quart of highly darkened fluid poured out of the transmission. In total, I drained 3.7 quarts of ATF and completely filled the transmission after the specified 2.7 quarts. The main cause of this points to a factory mistake – the factory overfilled the transmission by a full quart, and the car’s been operating like this for the past 4 years/60,000 miles. The other possibility is that fluid from the torque converter drained back into the transmission pan – however, a fluid level check some weeks later showed the transmission to be properly filled.
Considering the state of the fluid that was drained, a complete flush, filter change, and installation of a transmission fluid cooler is slated for the near future…stay tuned.

Source

Related Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,