| Subject: | Whitish frothy trans fluid |
| Question: | Purchased a 94 Mitsu
3000 yesterday. When replacing all fluids, the auto trans fluid was whitish
with bubbles and smelled awful. My experience with white oil is with water. The technician said he could not tell where the contaminant came from. What may be the most obvious causes? Plus he said that a full flush may cause the trans to be inoperable. Explain if you could. |
| Answer: | Mark, You're correct, typically a whitish substance and bubbles in oil indicates water contamination. How the water got in there, it's hard to say. Water may have gotten in during the last auto tranny fluid change, or may have even entered simply by condensation. If that fluid was ever previously changed, and a low-quality, non-recommended auto trans fluid was used, you may see degraded fluid over time. A full flush usually involves removing the tranny oil pan, and pushing
out all fluid in the tranny system using compressed air. With all the
fluid removed, you are sure to get out all the old, dirty fluid, but when
filling the tranny back up with fluid, some of the tranny system will
still have pockets of air in it. Like most systems, if they are not primed,
they can have a possiblity of failure. It's not common for this kind of
failure to occur, but it's possible. |