Your vehicle's automatic transmission is crucial to its operation. That's why it's important to know the signs that your transmission needs repair so you can act sooner rather than later.
Burning Odor
Your transmission can actually create a burning odor that you can smell from inside your vehicle. This happens when you have old transmission fluid in your vehicle that has lost its ability to properly lubricate the transmission. This will lead to the metal components rubbing directly against the other metal components, such as all those gears that need to work together to allow you to accelerate faster. Metal rubbing against metal is not good, and it can cause damage to your transmission over time due to all that extra heat that is being produced.
Humming Noise
You're likely to hear a hum coming from your transmission before you experience other problems. This sound comes from the bearings inside the transmission going bad, which causes an issue with the shafts and gears in the transmission rotating. It's a noise that you won't hear until you get to a higher gear, so you may not notice it if you only do local city driving and stay off the highways. The bad bearing will eventually cause clicking sounds when the transmission shifts gears. You may also have an odd noise when the vehicle is in neutral and the transmission isn't being used to change gears. This is due to the clutch having issues and needing to be inspected.
Shaking
Shaking is a common sign that an automatic transmission is going bad since the transmission is going to struggle when shifting to higher gears and then back down again. It may seem as if the transmission is hesitating and having problems moving to the next gear as you accelerate. If left as is, the transmission will eventually start to fail at moving to the next gear, which will require emergency repair.
Leaking Fluids
You can easily diagnose a problem with leaking transmission fluid because you'll notice it under your vehicle when you are parked. A fluid leak is likely to happen due to the hot temperatures within the transmission when other things are wrong with it, such as low transmission fluid. The seals that keep the fluid in the transmission will become damaged, and cause the transmission fluid to leak out. Fixing the problem isn't just about finding the leak, but finding why the leak was caused in the first place.
Contact a local auto shop to learn more about transmission repair.
Share4 November 2021
After my car died and I was stranded on the freeway a few years back, I knew that I had to do what I could to avoid similar issues in the future. I began working hard to identify different issues with my car, so that I could prevent problems. I began working with a mechanic to get help, and he taught me a lot about going through my car and being able to evaluate different things that were problems. It was really interesting to explore the possibilities of different car failures, and before I knew it, I could tell when my car was struggling. Read more about the early signs of car trouble on my blog.