Checking Your Transmission Fluid

One of the first things that I learned about automotive care was the importance of what I like to call "preventive maintenance." This term is a very general term that describes a list of things that you should check periodically to ensure your car or truck is operating in the proper manner. If you happen to have a car or truck with automatic transmission (which most vehicles on the road these days do) then one of the things that you should have on that list is checking your transmission fluid.

Materials Needed:

• Transmission fluid (Check owners manual for vehicle specific fluid)
• Funnel
• Owners manual/Repair manual
• Rags

Steps:

1. Prepare. The first step in checking any motor vehicle fluid is to familiarize yourself with your vehicle. It might sound a little strange, but in order to check your transmission fluid (ATF) you are going to need to know just where you are supposed to look. If you do not already know where the dipstick is located, then looking in either the owners' manual or a repair manual can help you out. Once you are familiar with the general layout of your car's engine, then you need to park the vehicle on a flat surface and make sure that the engine has run for a minimum of fifteen minutes to warm up everything, and then shut of.
2. Locate. Pop the engine hood on your vehicle and locate the ATF dipstick. It should be located near the back of your engine, but look in either a repair manual or the owners' manual for the specific location. It should look similar to the engine oil dipstick, but only smaller.
3. Check. Remove the dipstick from the sheath it is placed in, and wipe it clean. You want to be careful that as you are removing the stick you don't splash anything on yourself as the fluid can stain, and the stick may be fairly long. After you have wiped the dipstick clean, go ahead and reinsert it all the way into the sheath and then once again remove it. Look near the tip, and you should see two markings that indicate where the full line is at. One is for hot readings, and the other is for cold.
4. Fill. If it is necessary, then go ahead and add some of the appropriate transmission fluid to your vehicle. The way that you do this is by using a funnel and pouring the fluid through the same location that the dipstick was located. When doing this, only add a little at a time so that you can check periodically to see what the current level is at. Repeat steps 3 and 4 as necessary.
5. Clean. Once you have checked your fluid, and brought it up to the appropriate level go ahead and clean up any mess that may have been created. Congratulations, you are finished.