Manual trans oil

[visch1]

Recently I purchased a ‘98 LE/CE with 51K on it. Looks legit, and in VG condition, was a womans who drove it 11K in the last 12 years. It has a manual transmission and that’s my question concerning it. I noticed some oil on my driveway and found an oil leak in the area of the drain plug. Wanting to change the oil in it, I proceeded and upon opening the drain plug ATF flew out! Is this a trick to hide a problem inside it and cause more damage? My neighbor thought it was because some transmissions are hard to shift because of the linkage involved. I put in 2 quarts of 70/90 and can’t tell any difference. Am I overly concerned? TIA

[Bdub215]

Originally Posted by visch1

Recently I purchased a ‘98 LE/CE with 51K on it. Looks legit, and in VG condition, was a womans who drove it 11K in the last 12 years. It has a manual transmission and that’s my question concerning it. I noticed some oil on my driveway and found an oil leak in the area of the drain plug. Wanting to change the oil in it, I proceeded and upon opening the drain plug ATF flew out! Is this a trick to hide a problem inside it and cause more damage? My neighbor thought it was because some transmissions are hard to shift because of the linkage involved. I put in 2 quarts of 70/90 and can’t tell any difference. Am I overly concerned? TIA

The manual transmissions shouldnt have ATF in them. they require at least 75w90. If i were you i'd monitor the shift conditions and do another drain/fill in 3-5k miles.

[visch1]

Originally Posted by Bdub215

The manual transmissions shouldnt have ATF in them. they require at least 75w90. If i were you i'd monitor the shift conditions and do another drain/fill in 3-5k miles.

My feelings also, been a BYM for about 60 years that's why I ask. I did a search and was surprised that more than a few cars manual tranys are speced to use ATF. I spoke to the woman, 88 years old, and she only drove it localy so I'm less concerned. She got it in Nov.'02 and used it till Nov '11 and put on less than 10K! Now I'll start being concerned about seals and gaskets.

[Corolla1027]

Could be the drive axle seals leaking. Mine do. With only that many miles there's really not anywhere else for the transmission to be leaking from... scares me that there was ATF in it though.

[landphil]

ATF should not cause any major issues, I was told by a local dealer they sometimes fill these manuals with ATF to improve shifting, that was after I bought our 'rolla used I found ATF was billed out for the tranny service the previous owner had done. When I checked it myself, it actually had 75w90in it. As you say, there are a considerable amount of manual transmissions that specify ATF, though I wouldn't go so far as to recommend it for our transmissions.

[visch1]

I'm not too concerned now as it was driven about 20 miles a week and probably all locally. I tried it out with the new oil and it seems fine to me. Next week I'll register it and see what happens after some HW mileage.