Transmission light on. Out in the bush

[mtbtim]

I wheeled for about 5-10 minutes, climbing maybe a couple hundred feet over a couple kilometers over varied ups and downs, averaging about 20 mph. I had it in hi 1st. There's no way I reached 300. Not even 200. I felt the cooler at the time and it was warm but not hot. The fluid looks fine. The only thing I can think of is that because the fluid was low, it sent an erroneous reading during one of the ups or downs due to the slope. Outside temperature was around 60. Edit: if the fluid is cooked will it be obvious?

If that's the case, maybe your fluid is fine. If you hit 300 degrees, your fluid would smell burnt. I know the light is triggered at a high temp but don't know if it is triggered due to low fluid.

 

[LittleCaesar]

After 240 ATF begins to break down quickly. Maybe the sensor is going or there is a bad ground, etc. Check the wiring. The sensor is on the right side of the tranny near the neutral safety switch.

 

[Lastplace]

I had a Volvo water temp sensor go bad, pegged at 300 deg. Paid a bunch to get it towed just for sn
over priced Volvo sensor.

 

[Team_Jake]

Hey do you know if this work on earlier years? I can't get the AT temp on my OBD2 reader from my 99.

Yes, you can read trans temp through OBD2 on a '99. '98 or earlier you cannot.

 

[Mark_BC]

Ok maybe third time lucky with this post. Having a real hard time with my phone right now. Cannot get a photo up onto the internet so I'll describe it. I compared the fluid to my other auto 4runner with good fluid. Wiped them both on a white paper towel. The suspect fluid is darker, closer to brown but still red. The good fluid is bright red. Could this be due to different or older fluid? The suspect fluid smells like oil, not particularly burnt but who knows.

I didn't previously set up my scangauge to read transmission temp because I didn't have time. But when the warning light came on out in the bush, boy I figured it out fast! The fluid was about a half quart low. I topped it up then and now it's a bit overfilled. So when I got the scangauge going I drove back out. I went to the beginning and drove up the first part again to see what would happen, which was a continuous hill up a couple hundred feet. I put it in hi 1st and crawled up at low speed to get low air flow. I had to try to get it up to 158. This was about half the climbing that I did up until the light previously came on.

Then later driving at highway speeds I went up a sustained hill and it went up to 190.

So I cant imagine how it could have gotten that hot but who knows, maybe it did in the 5 minutes I was driving up the hill. But the light hasn't tripped since then which would be expected if it was faulty.

Really weird.