ATF colour

[Ranga]

This concerns my wife's Vitara, so may not be the right area.

Anyway, what colour should auto transmission fluid be? It's look quite brown, where I expected pink/red.

[Disco Muppet]

Some ATF fluid goes quite brown when it's at the changeover point, but I'm hardly an expert.
Is it still relatively clear or has it gone milky?

[justinc]

How many K's???

IIRC the Suzuki genuine ATF is still a red colour, might be worth changing it out, I would say.

JC

[BigJon]

I would be changing it. It has progressed from red to brown indicating both overheating and particles in suspension.

[justinc]

I have seen some power steer lubricants as brown from new, but IIRC nearly ALL ATF (excluding some full synth types like Transmax z which are a clear type of fluid) are Red. This is I assume some kind of industry standard/ idea.
It's not like an Allison AT545 that takes 20 litres of ATF... The Suzi boxes are usually less than 3 litres for a service fill, change it out, even using genuine fluid won't be that exxy. Waaayyy cheaper than a trans rebuild that is for sure.

JC