AT oil temp light

[98ImprezaWA]

My dad's 1999 Legacy L

 

it did this once about a year ago when he had the car all loaded up and driving around Pittsburgh (really hilly) Turned the car off, and back on, and nothing. No light, just normal.

 

Now about a year later it started flashing again, while he was on the highway. He had been driving for a while already, and it just started flashing suddenly. He said the car didn't feel any different, the light was just flashing. Again, the light has since stopped flashing, but its happened twice now, and he wants to figure it out. He took it to the dealer the 1st time it happened, and they said they couldn't find anything wrong. It has never done it right at start-up. I forgot to ask him if it blinked 16 times.

 

Manual says that the trans might be going. (it is old and tired in that car, and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it died any second now)

 

In searching through the forum I found this gem from back in 2004. Does this seem like it could be the issue? The OP had said that his AT oil temp light came on while he was on the highway:

 

the flashing light indicates that the Transmission Control Module (a little computer similar to the one that monitors the way the engine works) has detected a fault somewhere. The fact that it blinks 16 times doesn't tell you anything other than a fault has been detected. You need to do some electrical troubleshooting to figure out just which error it has seen. There is another thread on this board that describes in detail (with some pictures), just what you need to do to read the exact trouble code. I can't remember which one it is now, but I'll poke around a bit and I'll post another message here when I find it. It is also true that one of the more common failures is the "Duty Solenoid C" which controls the All Wheel Drive transfer clutch on the back of your automatic transmission. Driving with this failure won't necessarily wreck your transmission, but it will excessively wear your tires, you will feel the car jerk around corners when you're turning a corner slowly (that's called "torque bind") and eventually you will wear out parts of the drive train, so something else will break sooner than it otherwise would.

 

Your best option right now is to have the transmission fluid changed, and drive the car with care for a while to see if the blinking AT Temp light goes away. You should also get the trouble code that is stored on your TCM, and decide what to do next based on that code. Sounds like you've already changed the fluid, so all you need to do is retrieve the old code and watch that AT Temp light carefully for a while.

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[lmdew]

If the fluid has not been changed then that would be the first thing.