Hello,
Has anyone who regularly works on Caymans with TIP seen premature breakdown of ATF with as few as 5,000 miles. Over on the Cayman Club board there seems to be an issue with this and some are recommending very frequent changing of ATF fluid.

Here is the link:
http://www.caymanclub.net/cayman-cha...onic-read.html

I am especially interested in Porsche Doc's thoughts on this.

Thanks,
Rick

 

I honestly can not imagine how he must have been driving that car to make the ATF look like that in 5,000 miles. After rebuilding automatic transmissions, I've been taught by everyone I've worked with that if the fluid looks THAT bad, you don't even do a flush. Ideal is the clear-red color you see in brand new fluid obviously, and a little brown is good for a flush... But when it's close to completely black and full of sediment, a flush is just going to jostle up all of the particles that are hanging around in the torque converter and get them to clog up the valvebody. If I saw the fluid in that condition, it would not have even been worthy of a flush. Either a) he has a giant contamination problem coming from somewhere, allowing dirt/debris into the fluid or b) he's burning fluid at a rapid rate. I would personally recommend getting an ATF cooler (or an upgraded one if the Cayman already has it, which I'd assume it does) to prevent the fluid from getting so hot. You also have to take into consideration why it was burning, could the clutches have been slipping that badly? No matter the case, I'd say this is DEFINITELY an isolated incident, I've never seen any car have problems like that until 150k+ miles. I wouldn't necessarily let it sway your maintenance procedures, just keep an eye on your dipstick.