December 17

6:15 Last time i went to Jiffy Lube to change oil or first time i ever i did it on this car (after i attempted myself with the pump through the dipstick hole an failed, could only pull half of the oil, because i forgot the engine had to be warmed up to thin the oil) i asked them if they could check the fluid level in my automatic transmission. The guy there told me that i should go to the dealer because the car does not have a dipstick for transmission, "they have a special gauge for it they stick through the fill hole".

Another mechanic told me i should go and ask a mechanic who has "the expensive scanner" cause they can read the level with those.

None of these is true, i found out two days ago that on newer "sealed" transmissions ("newer" is one way to say it, my old Elantra was a 2013 and i was convinced you cannot check ATF level on those) with no dipstick hole there is a hole on the side of the transmission (actually close to front of the car, kinda hard to reach if you don't raise the car) that is at the exact level of transmission fluid when the car is sitting on a flat (level) area like on concrete in a shop, called overfill hole. You clean and remove the plug on that hole like you would with the drain plug and watch what happens. If it flows, barrely, it means the fluid is at the right level. If it doesn't flow, it means you have to add until it flows (barely), etc..

It seems no mechanic i know knows about or is willing to do it and i am just perplexed cause these have been around since at least 2013. I checked videos on youtube and some came with crazy ways to do it. One guy who drained it all (it would not come out all however, because there is some in the torque converter, you have to hook the tranny to a special machine only dealers have) measured it and put back in the same amount, after filing the head of the fill plug until will come out (3 times, after which 90% of the fluid is changed). So today i will attempt to do it myself (again in a shop where i know the owner and he said he would let me do it, it's a 5 minutes job, that to me could be half hour because when i do something i always stop and think of the other things i see around when i looked into an area for the first time). It's even more complicated than that, because at my car the fill hole for the tranny is under some part (flange under shifter lever) that you have to remove first, and if it's low, i will attempt to fill through the same overfill hole with a special funnel i just invented. That is if i can reach to the overflow plug without raising the car. And for some reason i don't understand, i have a gut feeling that i will run into some surprise if i do it.

11:10 Just came back, i didn't even open the plug, just by loosening it i saw fluid coming out, put it back. The gentleman at the shop help me confirm a diagnosis i once had in a transmission shop. Soft transmission mount which i could probably replace myself. Looking for an OEM part(s) online, and i need a full transmission flush, 10 qts, because fluid is kinda brown, consistent with the mileage, which at the dealer cost 210 for the fluid only. OEM Hyundai.

5:37/3:37 Ler

7:22/5:22