I had an odd experience with my neighborhood dealer, and it's been bugging me for a while, so I thought I'd see what you guys thought. As I was getting ready for a 6 month deployment a few months ago, I figured it was a good time to swap out the trans fluid, in addition to the usual oil change and storage prep. I know the fluid is supposedly a "long life" variety, but it was looking pretty cruddy (sitting around 50k miles atm). While in the dealer service office, I noticed they had been overtaken by the B&G company and it's line of services. I inquired as to the type of fluid they would be using, and was assured it would be a full type IV fluid swap, not a "universal" fluid. It seemed a bit "too good to be true" since type IV is more pricey than others, but it was a direct question, so I couldn't imagine a direct lie in return. Later that day I returned to pick up the car, and popped the hood in the lot to check their handiwork. Not that I didn't trust them, I just hadn't seen fresh trans fluid since I bought the thing 3-4 years ago, and was curious. I was a bit surprised to see it was still grey. I couldn't tell if it was actually better than before in terms of clarity, since I didn't have a "before" sample to look at. I thought maybe the fluid in the dipstick tube was nasty and maybe clouding up what I was looking at. So I drove a few miles to fill-up, but the AT fluid still looked the same. Even a few hundred miles later, it still looked the same. Now I'm not the unrealistic sort, I knew be BRIGHT NEON RED, but I thought maybe a dark red wasn't an unreasonable expectation. Or am I completely misunderstanding fluid swaps/flushes? I emailed the dealer about my concern, and they replied saying that it was a detergent product used during the flush that somehow darkens the subsequently added fluid. Had I know that, I wouldn't have let them do the swap. As controversial as flushes are, I certainly didn't want anything BUT trans fluid in there. But it was done, so that was that. Still that answer didn't sit well, so I emailed B&G products directly. I was surprised to hear back, and from the sounds of it, they provide their own line of synthetic fluids, some of which are a darker red, and might appear grey if they intermingle with even a slight amount of old fluid. This raises the question of: did they not use true type IV fluid like I asked? Suppose I will have to ask to see the container next time I'm in. Still, how can a flushed transmission's fluid not show ANY red at all? How then can a customer know the service was done, barring a lab test (last resort)? I know I didn't pose an exact question in this, but I wondering what people think. The more think back myself, I'm finding myself not wanting to trust that dealer anymore. I'll be due for the ol' timing belt job soon, and I don't feel like I trust these guys right now.

Note: I'm not asking about the merits of trans fluid swaps, nor the pro/cons of swaps/partial changes/pan drops/etc. With the age of my transmission, I reckoned the risk of damage due to fluid exchange was minimal, and that fresh fluid being in there for 6 months of storage seemed a good idea.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. I love this forum!