Anyone care to try and explain/speculate?
Earlier this week I was near St. George UT running up the long climb heading north. It was hot out side, I had the AC and had been driving for a maybe an hour. I don't usually run my AC.
I look in the side view mirror and I'm blowing smoke - like pull over immediately smoke! Quickly determined that trans fluid was leaking onto the exhaust. It was just barely dripping by the time I made the shoulder and lost maybe a half a cup of fluid onto the ground.
The fluid level was spot on, nice and pink, so I drove on to the next town, cleaned everything up at the car wash, checked the fluid again and pressed on.
Several hundred miles later - same thing minus the AC being on and much less smoke. Pull over and it's barely wet - mostly near the cooler lines and the fluid level is still unchanged. The wet areas are all rear of the cooler lines....nothing on the bell housing indicating torque converter issues - but the source is hard to determine as there's a bit of fluid everywhere from the lines back/up.
Looked away and drove another 900 miles home without incident.
What the heck?
Are the trans cooler lines the likely source of the leak?
Is there some kind of vent that's allowing burps of fluid and, if so, why?
Despite this I STILL love this van!