billynomates

No offence taken m8, cos in that respect i totally agree with you ive seen many insides of auto boxes and they have all been clear as the day they were put in, the fluid in this one was the correct colour when i actually saw the muck i was quite hopeful a m8 standing there said "oh that wouldnt cause it" but i knew it was possible but i was more bothered that there may have been damage because of it been out again today and fingers crossed all seems well, gear changes are perfect, maybe the little guy who had the car couldn't reach the dipstick and used a hose to put it in lol

if it was metal shavings i would agree with you this was muck/contaminated, climate has everything to do with a car jags dont rust in america, they certainly do here, air intakes in japan pick up completley different muck than the uk as you said previously dirt shouldnt be in the box, but it could be something as silly as the container the previous owner kept fluid in, as ive seen diesel rot containers then end up in the filters, so who knows

ive seen MANY of the jap imports, and the dust and the climate they come from, nothing surprises me, and having recently delimited the car, who knows what it's dislodged/shocked, ive had a few autoboxes apart and never seen muck in them like this especially after just 35k, maybe the previous owner contaminated the fluid? and the hard driving has uncovered it i was close to buying another import, because for double the price of a rebuild i could have bought a whole car, swopped boxes and still had a LOT of spares

another newbie here, been reading the forum for ages picking up some good advice, then a few days ago developed EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM as above, and as my import has only done 35k, thought dropping the auto sump was worth a shot, the minute i saw the filter i knew it wasn't right so cleaned it, refilled with new fluid, and hey presto the horrible noise has gone, and no loss of power, also a big thanks to ANDYGP, who kindly gave his number to a m8 who was fitting an alarm, so as long as i've caused no long term damage, the price of the transmission fluid has cured an otherwise fatal problem