Transmission Overheating - anyone else?

[RideWithYanu]

The first response I can make to you on such an obvious reason for your transmission overheating is why do you think Toyota has fitted a low range transfer case? And the second question is why do you think Toyota have fitted an 8 speed automatic?
Bub

With your logic you don't want to use the tools properly so they now show signs of breaking.

An automatic torque converter can only handle a finite amount of load displayed as heat through transmission oil.
Either use your vehicle in its design parameters or you will break it, simple as that.

I’m going to massively generalize here of course but I’ve noticed a distinct difference between American off-roaders and Australian off-roaders, where Americans tend to see 4-lo and locked diffs as tools to use only after you’re stuck or starting to get stuck, where Australians tend to see them as tools to use to prevent the problem in the first place. Of course many break the mold (I’m an American and I tend to go to 4-lo and use lockers far before they are “necessary.”) I think that’s at least partially an explanation here.

 

[jarussell4]

Well, Australia or US offroader…this are easy trails where I’ve taken my wife’s prius, a nissan rouge and All Jeeps I’ve owned (I know, y'all hate Jeeps). This also happens on switch back asphalt street that slow and go and civics, pinto's, chevettes, fiats, coopers, yagos, go up without a problem…pretty unsafe to use 4lo in those conditions, I do not think Toyota meant 4LO for those situations. I’ve been offroading for 30+ years, so I am not a rookie, though this is my first Toyota. By the way, I have lived in other countries too, where I also have offroaded…trust me, not normal. Except the dealeship and Toyota (they openned and closed a TAS for this) says it is normal.

 

[RideWithYanu]

Well, as it has been said on this post and forum before, 4lo on a twisty road

Well, Australia or US offroader…this are easy trails where I’ve taken my wife’s prius, a nissan rouge and All Jeeps I’ve owned (I know, you hate Jeeps). This also happens on switch back asphalt street that slow and go and civic…pretty unsafe to use 4lo in those conditions, I do not think Toyota meant 4LO for those situations. I’ve been offroading for 30+ years, so I am not a rookie, though this is my first Toyota. By the way, Ihave lived in other countries too where I also have offroaded…trust me, not normal.

nice

 

[lcq]

Toyota should have designed a more robust transmission cooler whether you use 4Hi or 4Lo.

I'm one of the people that see transmission temps >230F while in 4Lo. Maybe I'm naive, and will find out that these transmissions are designed for high temps. We'll see.

 

[WeGo250]

on other threads, people were saying the torque converter is the reason for overheating. mine does the same, need to use 4LO only - temps rise as soon as its in 4HI

This is the solution I've adjusted to. Certainly not when I'm going 20-ish mph down forest service roads, but anything "crawl-like" at under 10 mph or so, even if the vehicle is getting along just fine in 4Hi, I switch to 4Lo. The one instance I had where my Trans temp went red for a moment was something that thinking back to the situation, the motor had the rpms up a lot higher than what made sense the speed at which I was moving, and the torque converter would have been eating up that speed difference resulting in the fluid temps spiking. And as stated, 4Lo would have fixed that.

 

[WookieBait]

The first response I can make to you on such an obvious reason for your transmission overheating is why do you think Toyota has fitted a low range transfer case? And the second question is why do you think Toyota have fitted an 8 speed automatic?
Bub

With your logic you don't want to use the tools properly so they now show signs of breaking.

An automatic torque converter can only handle a finite amount of load displayed as heat through transmission oil.
Either use your vehicle in its design parameters or you will break it, simple as that.

There's always the smart ass on these forums.

Weirdly every full time 4wd and part time 4wd vehicle I have owned over the years doesn't have this problem. I've never needed to go into 4lo to avoid temperature and transmission overheating doing light off-road trails. mine even will overheat at low speed ON ROAD if it's uphill. There's a design flaw full stop..

 

[ultane]

The first response I can make to you on such an obvious reason for your transmission overheating is why do you think Toyota has fitted a low range transfer case? And the second question is why do you think Toyota have fitted an 8 speed automatic?
Bub

With your logic you don't want to use the tools properly so they now show signs of breaking.

An automatic torque converter can only handle a finite amount of load displayed as heat through transmission oil.
Either use your vehicle in its design parameters or you will break it, simple as that.

Welcome to the asylum.

I think you are on to something.

 

[WookieBait]

Toyota should have designed a more robust transmission cooler whether you use 4Hi or 4Lo.

I'm one of the people that see transmission temps >230F while in 4Lo. Maybe I'm naive, and will find out that these transmissions are designed for high temps. We'll see.

I've put mine into limp mode off-road, it's not designed for high temps. Of course dealer can't replicate it and claim they can't find any data showing this.

 

[fuzznuts]

I am the OP of the thread and someone reached out to me asking how my situation turned out as they are seeing similar behavior so I thought I would touch base here.

I have not bothered to go back to look for my last post to see where I left of so apologies if I am repeating myself.

TL;DR - I traded in the vehicle and moved on

Ultimately neither my 2 dealers or Toyota took any interest in sorting out what was going on. All 3 told me that I have a warranty and they recommended that I ignore the pull over warning and continue to drive the vehicle until it broke so that they had something to work with. Funny enough no one wanted to put that in writing however. I take solo off road trips with the goal of only being reachable via satellite (garmin) communication. I simply was not interested in potentially dealing with this issue given my use-case.

For me, the comments here that one just "needs to learn how to drive and use 4Lo" were silly. I was able to overheat my transmission on paved mountain roads with 40mps speed limits. I was able to overheat my transmission on maintained forest roads where one could easily reach 20-25mps safely. I was able to overheat my transmission on easy trails where one is putzing along 5-10mph. Driving to work I was able to hit 220-230F and in all cases with the windows down, able to smell burnt fluid.

Now - yes - going into 4Lo in situations I and others here would never think to did help some (paved road with cars flying by me?) but I maintain either the transmission is not fit for purpose or it is finicky and requires extra attention/care that I have never had to do with any other off-road vehicle nor anyone in my party has ever had to deal with. In which case I felt I am not fit for the vehicle which is why I took the action I did to offload it.

I pulled OBD data, took pictures, videos, documented with gps breadcrumbs where I was when it was overheating. The dealers said that the vehicle does not log overheating conditions and while they acknowledged the video/pictures of the dummy gauge, the warning to pull over, and the OBD data I collected they said there is nothing wrong.

Now - I certainly could have had a lemon but Toyota is not really batting a 1000 lately with their engines and transmissions either. Ultimately I traded it in, got an Ineos Grenadier which admittedly is a very different vehicle from the 250 both good and bad. It does however have a dedicated cooler for the transmission and a separate one for the transfer case along with monitoring of temps via an off-road menu. I also collect OBD data on it and no matter what I have done including purposeful borderline abuse on the same roads and trails (and far worse) with the temp of the transmission having never exceeded 185F.

On the flip side the Grenadier is a British designed, Austrian engineered, German powered, French built machine - the sheer number of ways and the magnitude of how it can go wrong is truly without limit.

I wanted to like the 250 and I would likely still have it if not for all of this. It drives way better and is a supremely more comfortable vehicle than the tractor on wheels that is the Grenadier - but I am glad I am out of the 250 and glad I am in the Grenadier

I truly hope those with issues are able to find a way to get them sorted whether that is on your own or with Toyota's help. We all probably work harder than we should to be able to acquire these vehicles and enjoy them for where they can take us...

 

[RideWithYanu]

I am the OP of the thread and someone reached out to me asking how my situation turned out as they are seeing similar behavior so I thought I would touch base here.

I have not bothered to go back to look for my last post to see where I left of so apologies if I am repeating myself.

TL;DR - I traded in the vehicle and moved on

Ultimately neither my 2 dealers or Toyota took any interest in sorting out what was going on. All 3 told me that I have a warranty and they recommended that I ignore the pull over warning and continue to drive the vehicle until it broke so that they had something to work with. Funny enough no one wanted to put that in writing however. I take solo off road trips with the goal of only being reachable via satellite (garmin) communication. I simply was not interested in potentially dealing with this issue given my use-case.

For me, the comments here that one just "needs to learn how to drive and use 4Lo" were silly. I was able to overheat my transmission on paved mountain roads with 40mps speed limits. I was able to overheat my transmission on maintained forest roads where one could easily reach 20-25mps safely. I was able to overheat my transmission on easy trails where one is putzing along 5-10mph. Driving to work I was able to hit 220-230F and in all cases with the windows down, able to smell burnt fluid.

Now - yes - going into 4Lo in situations I and others here would never think to did help some (paved road with cars flying by me?) but I maintain either the transmission is not fit for purpose or it is finicky and requires extra attention/care that I have never had to do with any other off-road vehicle nor anyone in my party has ever had to deal with. In which case I felt I am not fit for the vehicle which is why I took the action I did to offload it.

I pulled OBD data, took pictures, videos, documented with gps breadcrumbs where I was when it was overheating. The dealers said that the vehicle does not log overheating conditions and while they acknowledged the video/pictures of the dummy gauge, the warning to pull over, and the OBD data I collected they said there is nothing wrong.

Now - I certainly could have had a lemon but Toyota is not really batting a 1000 lately with their engines and transmissions either. Ultimately I traded it in, got an Ineos Grenadier which admittedly is a very different vehicle from the 250 both good and bad. It does however have a dedicated cooler for the transmission and a separate one for the transfer case along with monitoring of temps via an off-road menu. I also collect OBD data on it and no matter what I have done including purposeful borderline abuse on the same roads and trails (and far worse) with the temp of the transmission having never exceeded 185F.

On the flip side the Grenadier is a British designed, Austrian engineered, German powered, French built machine - the sheer number of ways and the magnitude of how it can go wrong is truly without limit.

I wanted to like the 250 and I would likely still have it if not for all of this. It drives way better and is a supremely more comfortable vehicle than the tractor on wheels that is the Grenadier - but I am glad I am out of the 250 and glad I am in the Grenadier

I truly hope those with issues are able to find a way to get them sorted whether that is on your own or with Toyota's help. We all probably work harder than we should to be able to acquire these vehicles and enjoy them for where they can take us...

I agree that the situation you were facing, and the response from Toyota and the stealerships was unacceptable. I too would have ditched the truck in your shoes. I am glad that it seems to be an edge case with a defective unit. I hope that Grenadier brings you much joy!

 

[jarussell4]

I am the OP of the thread and someone reached out to me asking how my situation turned out as they are seeing similar behavior so I thought I would touch base here.

I have not bothered to go back to look for my last post to see where I left of so apologies if I am repeating myself.

TL;DR - I traded in the vehicle and moved on

Ultimately neither my 2 dealers or Toyota took any interest in sorting out what was going on. All 3 told me that I have a warranty and they recommended that I ignore the pull over warning and continue to drive the vehicle until it broke so that they had something to work with. Funny enough no one wanted to put that in writing however. I take solo off road trips with the goal of only being reachable via satellite (garmin) communication. I simply was not interested in potentially dealing with this issue given my use-case.

For me, the comments here that one just "needs to learn how to drive and use 4Lo" were silly. I was able to overheat my transmission on paved mountain roads with 40mps speed limits. I was able to overheat my transmission on maintained forest roads where one could easily reach 20-25mps safely. I was able to overheat my transmission on easy trails where one is putzing along 5-10mph. Driving to work I was able to hit 220-230F and in all cases with the windows down, able to smell burnt fluid.

Now - yes - going into 4Lo in situations I and others here would never think to did help some (paved road with cars flying by me?) but I maintain either the transmission is not fit for purpose or it is finicky and requires extra attention/care that I have never had to do with any other off-road vehicle nor anyone in my party has ever had to deal with. In which case I felt I am not fit for the vehicle which is why I took the action I did to offload it.

I pulled OBD data, took pictures, videos, documented with gps breadcrumbs where I was when it was overheating. The dealers said that the vehicle does not log overheating conditions and while they acknowledged the video/pictures of the dummy gauge, the warning to pull over, and the OBD data I collected they said there is nothing wrong.

Now - I certainly could have had a lemon but Toyota is not really batting a 1000 lately with their engines and transmissions either. Ultimately I traded it in, got an Ineos Grenadier which admittedly is a very different vehicle from the 250 both good and bad. It does however have a dedicated cooler for the transmission and a separate one for the transfer case along with monitoring of temps via an off-road menu. I also collect OBD data on it and no matter what I have done including purposeful borderline abuse on the same roads and trails (and far worse) with the temp of the transmission having never exceeded 185F.

On the flip side the Grenadier is a British designed, Austrian engineered, German powered, French built machine - the sheer number of ways and the magnitude of how it can go wrong is truly without limit.

I wanted to like the 250 and I would likely still have it if not for all of this. It drives way better and is a supremely more comfortable vehicle than the tractor on wheels that is the Grenadier - but I am glad I am out of the 250 and glad I am in the Grenadier

I truly hope those with issues are able to find a way to get them sorted whether that is on your own or with Toyota's help. We all probably work harder than we should to be able to acquire these vehicles and enjoy them for where they can take us...

Thank you so much for sharing and sad that you had to let go of the LC250. Love everything about it, except for that. Unfortunately things at Toyota have not changed, so far 2 dealers and corporate are dismissing the fact that this is not normal. I keep getting that the transmission seems to be operating normally (220F operating temperatures 80% is not normal tranasmission temp). Non of my 4x4 vehicles ever did this as a normal thing, if anything it was a sign of failure. I really do not want to change the vehicle as I am vested on this thing and my girls absolutely love it, compared to the jeeps, ford, Nissans we had owned.

 

[DDriver777]

I wanted to share my experience with the community in case others are having similar issues.

My Land Cruiser (1100 miles) is reporting overheated transmission fluid under certain conditions that my service center has been unable to replicate and therefore do anything about especially with the absence of any thrown codes.

On relatively slow (10-45 mph) winding paved and gravel roads that head up into the mountain near me, the transmission temp gauge gradually climbs to about 3/4 of the way to the red. If I continue on a dirt road that also puts the vehicle under load at slow speeds going up a hill the gauge will eventually hit the red and I will get a message that the transmission fluid temp is high and to pull over safely. This dirt road seems to be the trigger that actually overheats the transmission. The section of off-road trail is not tough trail and does not require low-range or even locking the center diff. Kias/Subarus have been on this part of road in the past.

I currently only able to read transmission temp sensor #1 from the ECU and between 245F and 250F the vehicle is overheated. At around 235 the gauge is 3/4 of the way towards the red. At one point I watched the temp gauge, in the span of about 4-5 seconds, go from blinking red (overheated) then drop to the middle point and then move back up to just below the red all while not moving.

As another data point, I am routinely in the 200F-215F while putzing around town which seems to be on the warm side however I do not really know what the expected normal operating temp is. I have also noticed that from about 130F to 215F the transmission temp gauge remains in the middle.

I am not able to replicate this issue while driving in the city or highway driving in the mountains.

Is anyone else experiencing anything similar? I would be curious to know what temps others have been observing around town and under load like mountain or light off-road driving.

Small contribution...

My 2025 LC now has about 7,500 miles on it. Took it out north of Scottsdale about six weeks ago on my initial "into the desert" foray. Was with some experienced folks, almost all in Jeeps. Was a modest trail, a grade of 3 in difficulty, they said, on a scale of 0 to 10. Some steep stretches, mostly on gravelly surfaces. Had the dreaded overheating message. Was in 4 Hi minding my own business. One of the leaders suggested putting it in 4 Lo. Did so, and the temps went down (only have the dash gauges). Later, read elsewhere on this Forum that, not only is putting in 4 Lo recommended, one might try to put it in Manual, to keep the transmission from, apparently, "slipping". (not sure what the right terminology is to describe it going back and forth, searching for the correct gear, apparently the action that produces the heat. BTW, it was not a hot day, mid-70s, tops. Went out a couple of days ago with this same group (aired down to 25 lbs., BTW, which seemed to be fine for this particular 67-mile trip; some washboard; the thrills were when we very gingerly, all puckered up, went over rocks that seemed way too big to go over without a lot of underbody (or elsewhere) contact. Did put some nice dents in the skid plate under the engine, and tore up one of the steps on the side. All things considered, I was ASTONISHED with what that vehicle did! Just flipping amazing.) Anyway, it was 62 degrees, roads were dry, and the trail was a 5, so, not a walk in the park, but not totally crazy, or so the experts were saying. Was much more attentive to the transmission temperature. Used 4 Lo quite a bit, and wasn't shy about manually shifting. Were creeping at just 3 or 4 mph (or more slowly) through the difficult sections (more bouldery sections with some short steep sections, than gravelly/sandy). Anyway, the overheating issue never materialized. If it had been hotter, maybe. Some new pinstriping and dents, but all in all, an amazing demonstration.

 

[RideWithYanu]

Small contribution...

My 2025 LC now has about 7,500 miles on it. Took it out north of Scottsdale about six weeks ago on my initial "into the desert" foray. Was with some experienced folks, almost all in Jeeps. Was a modest trail, a grade of 3 in difficulty, they said, on a scale of 0 to 10. Some steep stretches, mostly on gravelly surfaces. Had the dreaded overheating message. Was in 4 Hi minding my own business. One of the leaders suggested putting it in 4 Lo. Did so, and the temps went down (only have the dash gauges). Later, read elsewhere on this Forum that, not only is putting in 4 Lo recommended, one might try to put it in Manual, to keep the transmission from, apparently, "slipping". (not sure what the right terminology is to describe it going back and forth, searching for the correct gear, apparently the action that produces the heat. BTW, it was not a hot day, mid-70s, tops. Went out a couple of days ago with this same group (aired down to 25 lbs., BTW, which seemed to be fine for this particular 67-mile trip; some washboard; the thrills were when we very gingerly, all puckered up, went over rocks that seemed way too big to go over without a lot of underbody (or elsewhere) contact. Did put some nice dents in the skid plate under the engine, and tore up one of the steps on the side. All things considered, I was ASTONISHED with what that vehicle did! Just flipping amazing.) Anyway, it was 62 degrees, roads were dry, and the trail was a 5, so, not a walk in the park, but not totally crazy, or so the experts were saying. Was much more attentive to the transmission temperature. Used 4 Lo quite a bit, and wasn't shy about manually shifting. Were creeping at just 3 or 4 mph (or more slowly) through the difficult sections (more bouldery sections with some short steep sections, than gravelly/sandy). Anyway, the overheating issue never materialized. If it had been hotter, maybe. Some new pinstriping and dents, but all in all, an amazing demonstration.

That’s awesome - love to see these trucks getting used!

 

[sweet5ltr]

Small contribution...

My 2025 LC now has about 7,500 miles on it. Took it out north of Scottsdale about six weeks ago on my initial "into the desert" foray. Was with some experienced folks, almost all in Jeeps. Was a modest trail, a grade of 3 in difficulty, they said, on a scale of 0 to 10. Some steep stretches, mostly on gravelly surfaces. Had the dreaded overheating message. Was in 4 Hi minding my own business. One of the leaders suggested putting it in 4 Lo. Did so, and the temps went down (only have the dash gauges). Later, read elsewhere on this Forum that, not only is putting in 4 Lo recommended, one might try to put it in Manual, to keep the transmission from, apparently, "slipping". (not sure what the right terminology is to describe it going back and forth, searching for the correct gear, apparently the action that produces the heat. BTW, it was not a hot day, mid-70s, tops. Went out a couple of days ago with this same group (aired down to 25 lbs., BTW, which seemed to be fine for this particular 67-mile trip; some washboard; the thrills were when we very gingerly, all puckered up, went over rocks that seemed way too big to go over without a lot of underbody (or elsewhere) contact. Did put some nice dents in the skid plate under the engine, and tore up one of the steps on the side. All things considered, I was ASTONISHED with what that vehicle did! Just flipping amazing.) Anyway, it was 62 degrees, roads were dry, and the trail was a 5, so, not a walk in the park, but not totally crazy, or so the experts were saying. Was much more attentive to the transmission temperature. Used 4 Lo quite a bit, and wasn't shy about manually shifting. Were creeping at just 3 or 4 mph (or more slowly) through the difficult sections (more bouldery sections with some short steep sections, than gravelly/sandy). Anyway, the overheating issue never materialized. If it had been hotter, maybe. Some new pinstriping and dents, but all in all, an amazing demonstration.

Until these get out of the warranty period and transmission coolers can be installed, this is the only way to go off-road.

 

[WookieBait]

Ultimately neither my 2 dealers or Toyota took any interest in sorting out what was going on. All 3 told me that I have a warranty and they recommended that I ignore the pull over warning and continue to drive the vehicle until it broke so that they had something to work with. Funny enough no one wanted to put that in writing however.

That's exactly what my dealer wanted me to do. Yeah, hard pass, they will just deny the warranty saying I abused the car and I'll be stuck somewhere inconvenient as I'm sure road side warranty isn't gonna come get me off on some off-road location.

 

[ultane]

Over a decade ago, a friend of mine had a Ford F-350 4 X 4. He told me that hose trucks had a history of the tranny overheating, causing tranny fluid to overflow out of a tube on the tranny. Of course, it dripped down on a HOT exhaust pipe, and was known to cause fires back then, in that particular style of truck.

Since it was reported that the burning smell was present, has anyone seen any dripping tranny, anywhere, fluid from an LC that is over heating?

 

[grandsons]

Hello,

Frankly, this LC250 is my first vehicle with an automatic transmission. I’m still in the process of adjusting my driving habits. Because it has 8 gears, I feel like I can drive on gravel, mud, or mountain roads in 4H at low speed, relying on the high hydraulic torque-converter slip. Everything feels so easy.


With a manual transmission and a clutch, it was different. As soon as I used too much clutch, there was a high risk of burning it, so I would immediately downshift or switch to 4L. There was a direct feeling of torque, slippage and gear choices.

Until now, it's winter so I did had the temp gearbox issue. But I remain somewhat perplexed by the avalanche of speeds available and the usefulness of reduced speeds, which I find to have surprisingly short reduction ratios.

 

[D-Train]

I am the OP of the thread and someone reached out to me asking how my situation turned out as they are seeing similar behavior so I thought I would touch base here.

I have not bothered to go back to look for my last post to see where I left of so apologies if I am repeating myself.

TL;DR - I traded in the vehicle and moved on

Ultimately neither my 2 dealers or Toyota took any interest in sorting out what was going on. All 3 told me that I have a warranty and they recommended that I ignore the pull over warning and continue to drive the vehicle until it broke so that they had something to work with. Funny enough no one wanted to put that in writing however. I take solo off road trips with the goal of only being reachable via satellite (garmin) communication. I simply was not interested in potentially dealing with this issue given my use-case.

For me, the comments here that one just "needs to learn how to drive and use 4Lo" were silly. I was able to overheat my transmission on paved mountain roads with 40mps speed limits. I was able to overheat my transmission on maintained forest roads where one could easily reach 20-25mps safely. I was able to overheat my transmission on easy trails where one is putzing along 5-10mph. Driving to work I was able to hit 220-230F and in all cases with the windows down, able to smell burnt fluid.

Now - yes - going into 4Lo in situations I and others here would never think to did help some (paved road with cars flying by me?) but I maintain either the transmission is not fit for purpose or it is finicky and requires extra attention/care that I have never had to do with any other off-road vehicle nor anyone in my party has ever had to deal with. In which case I felt I am not fit for the vehicle which is why I took the action I did to offload it.

I pulled OBD data, took pictures, videos, documented with gps breadcrumbs where I was when it was overheating. The dealers said that the vehicle does not log overheating conditions and while they acknowledged the video/pictures of the dummy gauge, the warning to pull over, and the OBD data I collected they said there is nothing wrong.

Now - I certainly could have had a lemon but Toyota is not really batting a 1000 lately with their engines and transmissions either. Ultimately I traded it in, got an Ineos Grenadier which admittedly is a very different vehicle from the 250 both good and bad. It does however have a dedicated cooler for the transmission and a separate one for the transfer case along with monitoring of temps via an off-road menu. I also collect OBD data on it and no matter what I have done including purposeful borderline abuse on the same roads and trails (and far worse) with the temp of the transmission having never exceeded 185F.

On the flip side the Grenadier is a British designed, Austrian engineered, German powered, French built machine - the sheer number of ways and the magnitude of how it can go wrong is truly without limit.

I wanted to like the 250 and I would likely still have it if not for all of this. It drives way better and is a supremely more comfortable vehicle than the tractor on wheels that is the Grenadier - but I am glad I am out of the 250 and glad I am in the Grenadier

I truly hope those with issues are able to find a way to get them sorted whether that is on your own or with Toyota's help. We all probably work harder than we should to be able to acquire these vehicles and enjoy them for where they can take us...

Man.. really sorry this happened to you and you got this treatment from Toyo. I feel like lately with new cars under warranty, you could bring it in literally on fire, and the SA would be like.. 'Yeah, it's on fire, but it's still drivable, no?'

I had a roughly same-ish experience with my wife's Tiguan a few years back. New car, under warranty. I kept having to add coolant periodically during the winter (wife got low coolant alert and it was very low).... no leaked out coolant in the garage or on the belly pan. Took it the dealer a few times, and each time 'Ops checked good... no leaks'. Well, that coolant is going somewhere. They refused to go any further on trying to track the issue down. They tried to gaslight me into thinking adding coolant every month is a totally normal thing to do. Sorry, your Jedi/SA mind tricks won't work on me.

Finally, a SA who took pity on me, pulled me outside and said 'Look, I think what's going on is you have a small crack in the block. When the car sits outside in very cold weather, the crack is leaking coolant out in large amounts until it warms up and 'seals' the crack. VW will not replace/warranty a new block. Keep driving it until explodes and then we'll replace/fix it.' So, with a year left on the warranty, they are advising me to take a chance on overheating/seizing the engine (which, no doubt, they would blame us for continuing to drive it with low/no coolant). I said 'thank you' and then we proceeded to do a VW buy back on it. It was PITA, and I have to wonder if they didn't sell that car to some other poor soul. Highly doubt they replaced the block. Sometimes just easier to move on...

 

[ultane]

Sometimes just easier to move on...

X

 

[overtrail887]

Took it up and over Rowher today in Ca. Thanks to the lovely folks here I knew about moving to 4 Low quickly.

This trail is a “black diamond” whatever that means. The trail climbs over 5 miles from 2,000 to 2,750 ft. During this the trans temp stayed in the middle. Then another 2.5 miles in 4Lo it goes from 2,750 to 4,825. That got the temps as high as 224f and the oil 217f. Outside temps 75-85f.

Going down 4Hi or 4Lo was a non issue. Temps stayed in the middle.

Surprisingly stopping to a bit on the side of a hill during the climb did little to bring down the trans temp.