Hi everyone, I hope you be having a good day.
i recently change the atf of my Subaru legacy 2009 4eat with 135.000 miles, I believe that the car had the original fluid because was so dirty.
i remove close to a gallon (I put the old fluid in a gallon of Walmart distillated water) and was close to full the bottle, I put 3 quarters and close to 7/8 of a 4 quarter (approx the same quantity of atf that I remove).
the thing is: I been checking the fluid level with the dispstick with the car hot, in a level surface after 30 minutes (13 miles) of driving (the distance from home to work) with the engine running and after shift to all gears and the level looks high, approx one finger over the full hot hole in the dipstick. My question is: I overfilled the transmission? Is that possible if technically I put less atf that I removed? If the previous owner change the fluid at least one time (I don’t think so) and overfilled the transmission must suffer any damage.
i hope that you can help me because I’m very confused with the level of the atf. Thank you
I overfilled the transmission?
Assuming that you have checked in accordance to the owners manual - yes.
Is that possible if technically I put less atf that I removed?
I'm not sure if I understood what you meant...
the transmission must suffer any damage
Not necessarily, it's not great for the transmission but I wouldn't say it "MUST" suffer damage...
Was it overfilled before you changed it?
Are you checking the fluid with the transmission in 'P'?
I do it and looks low
what is "low" exactly?
Is it between the cold and hot marks? That's all that matters.
says that I must drive 3-6 miles
per the manual , the transmission fluid should have at least 158 degrees F (70 C).
You can use a cheap $20 thermometer gun on the transmission pan to do this, but it shouldn't be necessary.
I'm not sure if I understood what you meant
What I was trying to explain is that I put less transmission fluid that I removed, a little bit less but less at the end of the day, that’s my confusion, how I can overfilled the transmission if I put less that I removed?
This can be caused by various types of human error - maybe it was you, maybe the previous owner, who knows?
Was it overfilled before you changed it?
No, or I don’t think so
Did you check the level before you drained it?
Did you check the level before you drained it?
Honestly I don’t remember, probably no
That would be my guess. Look at the bright side, it was likely serviced at least once, they just filled it a bit too much. You can suck some out if you want to. I just did a couple of drain and fills, and I always like to put in a little less fluid to start with, measure it properly, then add a little and check, repeat until full. A lot easier to add than to remove, as you have likely learned.
You can try looking up how much fluid a drain and fill is for your car and see if it’s close. Also generally for ATF drain and fill you pump it in through the fill hole until it starts coming out of there so if that’s what you did then it SHOULD be the right amount but your car could be different. If you filled it through the dipstick tube, then idk
Is being very complicated for me check the level, I don’t know if all the cars are the same but in my Subaru is a pain in the *** do it, sometimes is low, sometimes is overfilled, sometimes is good, I check the owners manual again and says that I must drive 3-6 miles and check the level after move the transmission between p-r-n-d, wait 2 minutes and check, I do it and looks low, then I drive another 6 miles (this time in highway) check again following the same steps and now is overfilled, I think that I gonna find some appropriate pump and remove some fluid.
Update in case that the information can be useful for somebody in the future:
Yes my transmission was overfilled, yesterday I remove close to 24oz, check today and for my luck have the correct level now (exact in the hot full hole).
The good news: the fact that I put the same level that I removed and the transmission be overfilled means that the previous owner change the fluid at least one time, that’s amazing because means that my transmission is in better condition that I expect.
the “Bad” news: even with the correct level of fluid the fluid have some bubbles, that means that the transmission have different fluids, that reinforces the theory that the previous owner change the fluid at least one time but use a different fluid, I don’t know if this is a big deal or something that I can ignore but probably after winter I’ll drain the fluid again to try to have the biggest quantity of compatible fluid inside the transmission. (I’m using the original Subaru fluid but the owners manual says that other fluid (dexron or something like that I don’t remember the exact name) can be used, I hope that the previous owner use it).
So yes for future users that can read this yes, don’t trust in the level of fluid that you removed to put the new one, can be the incorrect trust only in the method of check the fluid that your owners manual says.