How to Check Transmission Fluid

Series Summary

Major car tune-ups, or vehicle overhauls, are vital to the upkeep and maintenance of your automobile. Your car is a complex machine made up of simple machines that have many different parts and processes that must be checked for breakage, leaks, and wear. A mechanic can do all of these checks for you or you can learn how to do them yourself and fix many problems you may find; of course, you can always take your car into a mechanic should you run into a problem that you are not confident you can fix. If you would like to learn how to do a car tune-up, learn from an expert.

In this free video series, learn from expert mechanic Nathan McCullough as he teaches and demonstrates how to tune-up a car and do a complete vehicle overhaul. Learn how to check your transmission fluid, air filter, power steering fluid, clutch fluid, brake fluid, radiator and coolant hose, drive belt; how to change your spark plugs and your distributor cap; how to replace your windshield wipers and washer solvent; how to check for tire wear; how to change your oil and check for leaks.

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Nate McCullough on behalf of expertvillage.com. In this clip we are going to talk about one of the maintenance items involved in a major tune-up or vehicle overhaul. The item we are going to talk about in this clip is checking the fluid level in a standard transmission. On this particular vehicle here, the manual transmission has a dipstick. Some vehicles do, some don’t. Either way the fluid does need to be checked on a regular basis. As you can see there is a dipstick down here that says Trans fill. It is pretty much like any other dipstick. It sticks down into the fluid to a proper level. What I am going to do is flip the locking mechanism, pull it out, get my paper towel out, give it a nice wipe and clean it off. Most dipsticks are labeled. If you can see on there, there is a line for add and a line for maximum. Beware in between there is fine; anything in the add area you should top it off until it hits the max level. How you do a dipstick is dip it in and pull it out. You want the vehicle on level ground when you do so and at normal operating temperature. As you can see, we are about a 1/8 inch above the add mark, which means we are good. We are right there. When you reading a dipstick, you want to look for the lowest dry spot. That is how you check your manual Trans fluid. "