And I have to assume you'd prefer to have the whole drivetrain sealed away. No need to work on it or maintain it. It's just all icky under there anyway. Just throw it away when it falls apart.
And yes, I DO in fact prefer older cars I can tinker wth or work on.
Actually, I don't mind having a trans dipstick, as I "know what I'm doing" and will not overfill one, or dump in the wrong fluid...etc. But there are too many people out there that can screw things up, and there are many people who wouldn't check it anyway. So GM might just as well do away with the dipstick tube in order to keep the "Jiffy Lube" kids away from the transmission. Transmissions do not "use" transmission fluid unless there is a good reason. In that case, you "fix" the problem, and since very few DIY'ers fool with trannies anyway, it will be professionals refilling the trans, and we don't care whether it's got a dipstick or not. We'll get it done properly.
I'm a big believer in proper maintenance, but most people aren't, they don't want to be, and the manufacturers are catering to that. They want cars to be like electronics....you buy it, get an extended warranty to cover anything major for 3 years, and then you punt it.
Ian
The folks likely to mess up aren't likely to check it anyway, but as an ex-Chrysler line mechanic, trust me, I understand what you are referring to.
"They want cars to be like electronics....you buy it, get an extended warranty to cover anything major for 3 years, and then you punt it."
This is the type of wasteful thinking that scraps perfectly good cars and makes us the most wasteful nation on Earth. I wish they would have to take a test of some sort and if they scored as "want cars to be like electronics", then they get what they want. A little square electric car with a pretty paintjob.
Yes, that is typical GM-speak for "we'd rather require that an dealer service your car, than a knowledgeable owner or even an independent mechanic." And that's part of the problem.
The likes of Ian may call people like myself paranoid, I just don't see it as being acceptable to assume that the transmission fluid will never, ever need to be looked at, and that the average person is going to be able to park their car in a pristine spot every night so that they may discover leaks in the morning that indicate a problem. I might miss leaks on the ground... I *won't* miss a significant drop in the fluid level on a dipstick telling me there's a problem.
But again, GM would rather we ignore it, wait for the whole system to fail, and then tow it back to a GM dealer so that we can be charged for a whole new transmission (or be goaded into trading in the heap for a shiny new model that's even more "maintenance free" than what we had before) when early detection could have made the remedy cheaper and easier.
I can assume the philosophy here is to make the public embrace the idea that cars are disposable, and not fixable. However some of us intend to keep our cars for a while, and would like very much to be able to monitor things.
Also: why isn't GM so worried about us "contaminating" the oil? Maybe sometime soon, GM will remove engine oil dipsticks too, and just tell us that only a GM dealer can change the oil with some hocus pocus, super-duper GM-specific oil blend. And why not gas gages? Let's require every GM owner to roll into the service department every 75 miles so that a tech can charge you a labor fee while they top off the tank with GM-specific fuel, hmm? :)
Well let's see. My '87 and '89 Buicks back in the day would miss shifts once in a while back in '93. Turned out somehow I had low fluid. Where the fluid went, I'll never know as they were both one-time only occurrences, but I did have to top both off with tranny fluid. They ran great for years afterwards, with no leaks near as I can tell.
My '92 Mitsubishi Montero, piece of junk as it was, leaked tranny shortly after I got it, and the shop couldn't figure it out for a while. It took a few visits and a lot of monitoring the level to get it right. Thankfully, it had a dipstick.
I drove a Ford Ranger for a while. Let's not get into how many quality problems I had with that thing. But the dipstick helped, when the transmission was an issue.
Now? I have newer cars... an '02 Grand Am, and an '04 Cavalier. Tranny problems on either? I certainly hope not; I'd be mighty angry if my transmission were falling out on the Cavalier at 3200 miles, through my Grand Am at 35,000 is starting to get up there.
But then, I'm not really *sure* how the transmissions are doing on each. I can't check the levels. I have to assume, since they continue to shift reasonably well, that all is good. Haven't found any leaks, but y'know, being human, a lot of times I kinda forget to get on my hands and knees and check under the body of the cars for fresh drops of DEXRON III glistening on the concrete/pavement/whateer I parked the car on today.
I guess we'll find out when the Pontiac reaches 50k and I opt to get the fluid flushed.
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