BillyTheMan

So i bought a vr30 transmission on ebay to swap in my bad one. Got it Wednesday just started looking at it today. Dropped the pan and the fluid was black, straight black. A good amount of fine shavings in the pan and on the magnets. Ebay listing said the car it came from had under 100k miles on it, wrecked on the rear corner if i remember correctly. Given the black fluid and shavings should i have the transmission gone over and rebuilt before i install it? I know some shavings are normal but i don't want to have to drop it again. I want to be done with major car work for a while after this, had so much going on the past 6 months.

PhatherPhish

your new transmission could go 15k or 150k more miles. Black fluid sounds about right if it's close-ish to 100k miles. Did the seller provide proof that it functions? My advice is to swap it in. Don't forget to clean your stock transmission cooler. It's most definitely gunked up. If you're confident the new transmission is a dud, Buying another used one off eBay would probably be cheaper.

BillyTheMan

Seller did say it was functional. I figured if i had to get it rebuilt it would cut down on labor costs if i brought the transmission in vs bringing the car with the transmission installed. Reckon I'll go ahead and install it then. I have a separate trans cooler so cleaning that should be pretty easy. Was mostly worried about the metal shavings. Magnets were pretty fuzzy looking.