Transmission dilemma.

I had a front end accident last year in November. Collision center completed repairs and got truck back just fine. My brother who used to be a mechanic inspected the repairs and noticed a hose that was sitting there connected to another hose. Turned out to be the transmission line that runs to the radiator. I drove the truck mainly on highway 60-80mph in the cold weather for roughly 2 weeks. The transmission temp light never came up. I raised hell back at the collision center and they did a fluid inspection flush and refill. I was going through a lot of stuff at the time and decided to trust and just keep driving. Its been a year, 15,000 miles later nothing crazy has happened. I do suspect sometimes the truck randomly slips not often. I almost feel like it used to happen before the accident. I run the CVC tune. How screwed am I? I do have it in writing that they messed up and just tell me to take it back to them if anything is wrong. Its been a year and some months and I drive a lot. How much damage couldve occured? I didnt tow or off road just commuted to work 30 miles round trip daily on the highway

 

So the collision shop put the wrong radiator in and then didn’t put the correct one in after you identified the problem over a year ago? I would contact your insurance company and tell them what happened. Most likely the estimator picked the wrong radiator and instead of the collision repair facility writing a supplement to get the correct radiator, they just doubled the trans cooler lines back on themself. Not a horrible situation but I would definitely try to get it returned to the pre-collision state.

 

I wrote this all messed up, sorry. During repairs, they bypassed the transmission line to radiator to minimize coolant loss and never connected the transmission line back to the radiator when they turned the truck over. I went back to them and showed them then thats when they hooked it up and flushed the transmission fluid. Isnt driving with them doubled on themselves bad since the transmission wasnt getting cooled by the radiator??

 

I wouldn’t worry too much about that at all then. Long steep grades or towing in the dead of summer would be one thing but a couple weeks in the winter for small daily commutes, I wouldn’t bat an eye at it.

 

You're probably ok. You said "I drove the truck mainly on highway 60-80mph in the cold weather for roughly 2 weeks".
Without knowing where you are and what "cold weather" means as far as actual temperature can be very different.

 

New Jersey December temps so 20°F- 45°F

 

I wouldn't worry about it either. I've tracked my transmission oil temperature during my 30 mile highway commutes (at 60mph and between 32F-40F temperatures) and the transmission temperature barely breaks past 170F. I'm stock. I have a soft canopy and carry about 200lbs of extra weight in the bed.

 

Yeah, you are probably fine

August towing 5k? Ehhhh

 

It's fine.

But a drain and fill might make you feel better when the fluid comes out nice and red

 

Yea but your trans is being cooled by the radiator

 

When they flushed and refilled they said the fluid came out normal so thats why i just trusted. I’ll be carrying on then

 

I own a 2nd gen but I just wanted to add that I think you’ll be fine, at times I feel like I have little quirks with my transmission and I’ve had regular maintenance and no big repairs so I think you may just be overthinking things because of what happened

 

The radiator's primary job, as I see it, is to reduce the amount of time the transmission is cold - the radiator HEATS the ATF initially, and then later cools the ATF; if required. In your case of driving in the cold - cooling was probably not required.

I don't see how a body shop would know what is "normal" for a Tacoma.

I do agree with the others that you most likely have no problem.

 

Nothing like that has ever happened to me and my transmission is fine so i think you're gonna be fine. Everything is fine.

 

Your Tacoma has been tested to climb a constant grade in 100F heat towing 6900 lbs without overheating the tranny. In part that is because of the transmission cooler, but if you were just tooling around town a few miles, I’m guessing you are fine.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/1502-sae-j2807-tow-tests-the-standard/

I’m not an automatic transmission expert, but I am aware that the torque converter is a very lossy system that converts kinetic energy to heat, but otherwise an automatic transmission is no less lossy than a manual transmission. So as long as you were not overworking your torque converter (towing, stop and go traffic, rock crawling, drag racing) you are probably ok. And even so, you might have only caused slight more wear on the transmission and/or the transmission fluid.

Don’t let yourself worry something that might not matter in the long run and you cannot do anything about after the fact.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't 2020+ rid of the tranny cooler?

 

Yes it did. The the radiator still keeps the trans fluid temp at bay if it gets hot

 

That has been discussed a lot and my conclusion is that they got rid of a cooler that was external to the radiator, but one still exists inside the radiator. I have never took a deep dive, because I have a manual transmission. Also the tow rating did not change, except that in 2019 there is no mention of a “tow package” that affects the tow rating.

 

Your conclusion is correct. The external transmission cooler got deleted circa 2020, even with the so-called trailer tow models. FWIW, I bought and retrofitted one to my 2023. After that date, only the transmission cooler mated to the main radiator was used.

As for the OP running without a radiator that has the internal cooler, I have to wonder how they managed to find one "by accident." Some shops try to cheap out on a customer hoping they won't notice. inter driving without the internal radiator cooler is unlikely to be a problem, but it's good it got caught. Might be good to drain and refill the pan before summer.