Hello all. My neighbor has a 96 Camry 2.2L w/auto tranmission. She was complaning about some pinks drops of fluid on the floor. I took a look and saw that the drops fell from the backside of the tranny pan. Figured it was a pan gasket, but I could see other areas above and around that are also wet. So it could be leaking somewhere else and running down there. Then when I checked the dipstik, it was indicating well above the hot full mark (a good inch or so.) I checked again this morning with it cold and it was still an inch above the 'hot full' mark. It also appeared to be a little cloudy or murky. Since I don't have a lot of experience with auto trannys, much less on front drive cars, I don't know what is normal.

When I started asking her the history, she said that she did have it serviced recently. Also mentioned that she had some "Engine Seals" replaced within the last year. She is going to look up the invoices for me to know exactly what had been done. At any rate, here are my questions...

1. When this auto tranny is overserviced, is there a place for it to vent out and escape? Or will it stay contained within the transmission, assuming no leaks?
2. If a rear engine seal started leaking, would or could it get into the transmission fluid?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Scott

 

so it was from the rear of the tranny pan? often, shops wil over tighten the trans pan bolts, which causes them to leak a bit

 

What he said. Probabally have to drop the pan to let it out.Some of them have a drain like the oil pan.

 

Overfilling auto trans = BAD Always drain out excess, never overfill. Theres no blow off valve or anything like that. Overfilling fluid will blow the seals and mess up trans as your neighbor has unfortunately found out.
Hopefully its not too late to drain out excess and maybe no permanent damage done, its a Toyota. Id wash the engine too and see where that leaks coming from as well.

To your second question. If the engine is leaking oil from the rear main seal; it cant get into the automatic trans fluid. They are sealed from each other. If you have a MANUAL transmission, though, leaky oil from the rear main is going to end up on the clutch disc and ruin it. But for an auto, no, there is no danger of oil and ATF mixing because of the way they are built. So here an oil leak is just an oil leak and no threat to your auto trans.