JBC

Well, this time I had the filter changed as well as having the fluid flushed and re-filled, and I got the old filter and a sample of the fluid for examination. But what do I look for? The fluid is dark grey and doesn't seem to have many particles suspended in it; drained some through a paper towel and found little - eyeballing it in a drinking glass seemed to reveal a few particles and the exterior of the filter has some particles stuck to the surface in fluid "gel". Haven't taken the filter apart...but looking inside all I can see is a dark grey material which appears to be somewhat hardened, as opposed to soft/porous. Can anyone tell me how to examine these items of evidence and how to draw valid conclusions?

skiracer

and will be almost impossible to see with the unaided eye. Look through the fluid in a clear glass- is it transparent or opaque? Clean fluid is transparent- if opaque then the cloudines is the result of suspended particles. Clean/new Audi fluid is a transparent light yellow fluid, and used fluid is generally mufh darker in color with a brown or reddish hue. If your fluid is grey, I would suspect water or other possible contamination. But post photos- that will be the biggest help.

JimR

You dang sure couldn't see thorough it. Very gray, and I really don't think there was any water contamination.

I bet most of our A8's look like that.

JBC

Yep, your pix looks a lot like my fluid, though mine may not be quite as dark and skanky as yours; but it sure as hell isn't clear/yellow!

skiracer

therefore my confusion. That is why I wanted JBC to post a picture of his fluid. JBC- if your fluid looks like JimR's, then you are likely OK as far as not having any contamination, just common used tranny fluid. I would schedule another fliud drain/fill within 5K miles, and then change the fluid/filter every 30K miles from here on out.

JimR

I'm going to do a drain/fill on the A6, in addition to the filter replacement / refill I already did, in th next few weeks. That gets you to about 2/3 new fluid on the A6; haven't looked at the capacities on the A8 yet, that's in the queue for the next couple of weeks, too.

JBC

Well, I got the car back last night and have driven it about 100 miles since and this flush, re-fill and change of filter certainly has improved the situation! There's no whine at start up, nor any whining when driving the car; when the engine's cold,however, when accelerating from a dead stop there's still a bit of a whirring sound until the car reaches, say, 30 MPH, and I wonder what that may be. It disappears when the engine temp is up. Reading some of the postings, now I'm wondering if I need to do mutiple flushes (I've had two so far) to get ALL the fluid changed...any ideas on that, and/or re my "whirring" noise?

skiracer

you will have replaced approximately 80% of the original fluid. Replace the filter and as much fluid as possible every 30K miles after that.