Does trans fluid wear out

daredevil said

My 02 ram quadcab has acted up twice this week. Its been over a hundred here and I let the truck run for 5 or 10 minutes when I run in a house to check it. When I come back and drop it in gear it seems to slip. I baby it and when I get up to speed it doesnt want to shift to o/d. I stopped both times at this point and let it sit an hour and it seems fine again. Does the fluid lose viscosity and make the converter loose.Changed it twice but havent done it lately,about 75 k ago was the last change. Truck has 160,000 miles. Could old fluid cause this in the heat or do I have a bigger problem looming.Long as I dont let it sit its fine. Whats gonna happen if i get in a traffic jam though. Rams have coolers on them already.What should I do?

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When the trans is sitting in park it doesn't pump fluid all that well. that terrible design of the 727 followed thru until only 2006 i believe when they finally allowed the trans to pump correctly even when in park.

If you want to let it idle for any time, do it in nuetral.

Temp is what you really need to go by to change fluid, mileage intervals are much longer on trans fluid, UNLESS you run it hot... then the fluid you put in yesterday that might have gone to 60,000 now needs to be dropped 10 minutes ago....

Without a trans temp gauge to watch you'll never know.

Changing the fluid after certain issues like this can cause other issues, as the fluid cooked and added to clearances, the new fluid will clean everything nice and move all little debris all over and causes further issues...

it's a gamble now