5-quart ATF Overfill

[NKenny]

I took my '06 in for some warranty issues which included a small ATF drip from the front of the transmission (48RE). The tech called me about 2 hours later and asked me who did my last transmission service and informed me that my transmission was ~5 quarts overfilled. I have been the only person to service this truck in the 35K miles and have only inspected the ATF, seen it was good in color, and went about my business. I have never added ATF.



What the heck is going on? Is there a chance that the truck had a 5 quart overfill from the factory (that seems very excessive)? Or does the service dept. not know the proper fill level? What am I missing?



I would think that a 5 quart overfill would push ATF out the dipstick and then push every seal out of place.



Any thoughts?

 

[Mark1si]

My 05 had 2 quarts to many from the factory. The day I bought the truck I checked all the fluids and it was over full.

 

[Bertram65]

I do not think that is possable, my guess would be the tech drained it and measured it against the wrong chart, alot of these techs have no clue. About a year ago I went to get some trans fluid from the dealer, I was talking to the tech asking about how the 48RE had been holding up, he told me he had never heard of the 48RE, only the 47RE. Recently when I checked my trans it was about 1" low on the dipstick, half a quart brought it up over the full mark, my trans has had a little seepage from the check valve the dealer installed on a TSB, when I went back and pointed out it was seeping they said it was not, for the amount it seeps it is not worth my time to deal with thier incompetance, eventually I will fix it, it is a O-ring on the fitting but you need a special tool to take it apart.

 

[rbattelle]

I do not think that is possable, my guess would be the tech drained it and measured it against the wrong chart, alot of these techs have no clue.

I was about to make the same suggestion. I don't mean to condemn all techs (sag2, for example, is a great one), but considering how difficult it is to properly check the ATF level on an automatic (I've never really been able to do it right), it's entirely possible the technician did it wrong. That, in itself, doesn't make him a "bad tech"; he simply made a mistake.



Ryan

 

[BJMarshall]

I don't think you can get 5 extra quarts in there. I severly overfilled one not too long ago. I build a couple of transmissions a month. I was changing the fluid on my truck and I was just used to putting in 5 quarts and then cranking it up and continuing to add fluid that's what I did. When I got to the 9th quart, it quit going down the funnel and there was a puddle starting to form under the truck. OOPS.