I was driving on a hilly mountain road (not off road, they are proper bituman) with 4 adults. At some point I got this badly burn smell. I look at the rear mirror and see no smoke nor fire. So I drove on, after about 10 mins, the smell disapeared. So I thought all is good, mgith just be someone burning something on the mountain...


Then yesterday I took the car to the dealer to replace the PCM, the dealer report along the usual error codes (which resulted to replacing the PCM) they also find this "P0218", tranny overheat thingo. My 1st reaction was oh, that must be that burning smell! So I open the hood and have a look on the dipstick, well, nothing is coming out from there, no trace of oil, I check the rubber seal on top of the dipstick, no sight of oil.

Here is my question, If the tranny oil is not overflowing out from the dipstick, whereelse can it come out? is there a breather or something for the tranny somewhere??

ps. I was either running with the O/D OFF or using 2nd gear on most of the trip. the jeep is un-modded with the stock 32" tyres.

cheers (and phewwwwwww, no fire (...yet)!)

 

The breather is in the area of the dipstick tube, about halfway down the tube.
Fluid could have been coming from there.
Get an Aeroforce gauge. It will read transmission temp.

 

right, found that breather, still can't see any trace of oil on that breather, wonder where was the burning smell coming from?

 

Never worry about this one again. Buy a $50 tranny cooler and enjoy the peace of mind.

 

How fast were you going in second gear. Going slow up hill at high engine RPM's will overheat any auto tranny if you do it long enough. The JK also does not realistically have a large enough tranny cooler. So you put both together and you were lucky if you didn't do any damage. Try and keep the engine RPM's down if you are going to be climbing for more than a few minutes.

 

Since it had a code didn't the check engine light come on, or was it already on from the other problem?

 

I would think driving it in 2nd gear, he has an auto, for long periods of time up and down hills with that amount of weight in vehicle would overheat almost any auto transmission. I dont get why you needed to drive an AUTO in 2nd gear so much??

 

it's summer time down under too. I hear parts of australia get right hot!!!

 

It was about 30~40km uphill road when it happened, the road was up and down, I put it to 2nd gear at times, kinda provide some engine brake when going down. when going back up, i either keep it in 2nd or put back to D, (can't remember which gear was it in when it overheat). the ambient temp is around 21'C, and it was raining too. wasn't going very fast, it's more like around 40 or 50KM-ish. I checked the rpm a few times when driving along, it was more like 3000ish.

Just a small correction, the burning smell lasted around 3 or 4 minutes, not 10 as mentioned above. but it was quite strong and distintive.

As for engine error light thing... The problem is my error light was constantly come on and off in the past 8 weeks, (it kept throwing error code P0032, 0038,0052,0058). it had been to the dealer pretty much on a bi-weekly based trying to get it fix. So IF there was a ding or a MIL light for P0218, I won't have noticed it. (the boy who crying wolf??)

Anyhow, I took the dipstick out to check the tranny fluid just now, the color still red and clear, have no burnt smell. Do you think I should make another trip to the dealer to do some sort of checking?

 

If the oil has no burnt smell your probably OK. Mine has come up with that code before and I didn't hear any chime or see any check engine lite. Like already stated put a trans oil cooler on it. Cheap insurance.