Why would tranny fluid be dark at 40k miles?

[bean]

'06. Went in for oil change and the tranny fluid was dark. Why would that be? Problems I wasn't aware of? What are syptoms that the fluid would get dark? No terrible things were happening. Yes. I might have gotten taken, dumb woman I am. I don't *think* they were showing me the oli stick . I opted for them to use their pressure machine that pulls and then puts in fresh. Yes I may have spent $$ but better safe than sorry...I hope.

[kevera]

Dark fluid is normal on our auto tranny's.Next time opt for the "drain" and "fill" method,it doesn't force crap through the system.I'm glad you like your sticks oiled

[bean]

Thanks. That's a relief that I didn't do anything majorly wrong.

[northvibe]

yup auto tranny is dark prolly off the assembly line here is my post about doing the drain/fillhttp://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=28967

[djb383]

Here's a sample of ours with 24K miles on the factory fill...........it doesn't seem very dark. Maybe the tranny cooler helps. click

[blue_can]

Depends how dark. Normal wear as well as the wearing clutch frictions will cause it to go dark. However, if it looks black or close to it then it could be more serious. Really, they should have also dropped the pan and checked what came out - usually what you find at the bottom gives you a general state of transmission health. Also a chance to clean out the magnet and change the filter (I'm assuming from you post they did not do that).