Hot oil warning

Broncorider

Broncorider

New member
So the last couple of times I've gone wheeling my hot oil warning has showed up. And yesterday while deer hunting it came on agian. Any suggestions on how to stop this?
 
Were you running it that hard? Did you have overdrive off? Agree with Dopey84 you need to flush it at the least, and look at getting a tranny oil cooler. My light came on after running for 4 hours with overdrive on and 4hi. Then climbed the last 3 miles in 4lo, overdrive on. I'm planning on getting a tranny cooler just so that it doesn't happen again, even though I'm never gonna drive it in 4hi/lo and overdrive off.
 
Also, don't wheel as much in 4hi. Climbing steep terrain or driving through sand or other loose surfaces in 4hi puts extra strain on the transmission, which in turn makes the trans oil hot. More than a few 3.8L JK Wranglers with the 42RLE automatic have burned to the ground because of this after puking hot trans oil onto the exhaust.
 
I had this problem come up and had my transmission flushed and haven't had a problem since... Not to say it won't happen again but like mentioned it is a cheap fix and will save your transmission.. I just ordered mine as well
 
No need to do anything, the JK already has everything built in to stop this problem. IF you are getting a hot oil light, you are lugging the engine/tranny, simple as that. Use the lowest possible gear, and if it's still not enough to be in 1st, you should be in 4LO.
 
You can still easily overheat trans fluid with 15 oil coolers if you crawl in the wrong gear. They simply increase capacity, but at slow speeds/fluid coolers without active ventilation (ie radiator fans) don't really do much. Besides, the 2012+ JKs have a built-in decently sized cooler, so again, if you're getting hot oil, you're in the wrong gear. Now, if you have a prior year JK, then you don't have a cooler, but again, the CAUSE of the temp spike is the heavy load, and the heavy load is generally caused by being in the incorrect gear when climbing steep grades for extended periods.
 
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I had it in 4lo quite a bit. Never went to 4hi. I had the od off for some of it but not all. I'll look into getting a cooler and flush the fluids
 
Overdrive will kill your transmission, Jeep or any other. That's straight from the words of my friends that are mechanics. Others are correct as well I'm sure, gear choice too. But most importantly as I've been told by nearly everyone, NO overdrive.
 
I don't know if I would so matter of factly make comments about being in the wrong gear or not, at least without asking how you were using your vehicle when the light came on.
Please share your driving style, elevation, ambient temperature and anything that comes to mind between the first time the light came on and this last time. Maybe there is something that you're doing each time that could have some factor in this.

Also, transmission coolers are not just added capacity, which does help, they are extra surface area to help cool the fluid, the fins help dissipate the heat as well, even with little to no extra airflow.
There are also quite a few fluid coolers out there with their own fan that is triggered by a thermostat when the fluid reaches around 180 degrees. That would be your best indicator that your fluid is heating up, next obvious option would be to add a temperature gauge as well.
 
My high oil temp light came on over the summer. It was a simple coolant temp sensor. 5 minutes to replace it.
 
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