@user1271772 Nope - on the dashboard

@RoryAlsop It's amazing how informative the dashboards can be with newer (even 2012) vehicles. I recently acquired a scrap vehicle with a faulty transmission, for which I have been considering to do a transmission swap or transmission rebuild, so I have probably been looking at the same posts as you. In your case it looks like it would be wise to stop driving the car until the transmission is fixed, because otherwise it could become much worse and much more expensive to fix.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 can probably correct me though.

@user1271772 - Not correct you, as I see your reasoning. My reasoning is a little different in that, if the plan is to replace it anyway, it shouldn't really matter ... except for the fact Murphey tends to rear his ugly head on you at the most inopportune times. I don't think I'd like to leave my daughter stranded on the side of the road, so that factor comes into play. At 200k miles, if the transmission is giving fits, more than likely you'd just want to replace it and be done with it.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 I agree that if the transmission needs to be replaced, then it doesn't matter how much worse you make it by driving it, but if the plan is to do a rebuild then the cost and effort required could go up if the transmission gets worse right? But what I had in mind when I wrote the last comment, was that other parts of the car can get damaged if one drives too much with a bad transmission. Here's some quotes that came up during my research last week:

> "It really depends on what is damaged and how bad. I can tell you one thing for certain, the longer you drive it, the higher the repair bill. You see if it’s just clutch slippage, you might get away with it, for a little while, but if it is something else like a drum, band, planetary or sun gear, we could be talking about the cost going way up if they explode.

> That could be to the point of doing harm to you. But the pieces of metal go through the oil feed holes and tear up other thing costing more money! Or how about this, the torque converter clutch is damaged. The clutch material goes through the pump and kills it and as that is destroyed, it goes through the valve body killing it and stopping up valves. Then it gets into the case, killing the other parts too and scoring the case. Now, you’re over $2500++. Was it worth it to keep driving?"

From a different place:

> "You’re going to have a lot of issues and a lot of maintenance bills if metal shavings start to chip off and get into your coolant."

There's other places where I saw people advising not to drive much with a faulty transmission, I'll try to put all those resources together if I end up writing a question or answer about this on the main site :)

> "there's no direct connection between the coolant and transmission fluid. Anything in the tranny fluid would remain with the transmission"

Yea I wondered if the person that wrote that meant transmission fluid.

> "My real point is, at this point transmission replacement is probably cheaper than a rebuild, but that depends on how much damage is already done."

Since I got this scrap car with transmission problems, I've been getting quotes for swaps and rebuilds. AAMCO said that a swap will cost me $1050 + tax if I have the new transmission ready to be swapped, and $1700+tax if I want the part too (this includes about 7 hours of labor, fluids, lubricants, cleaners, etc.).

He said a total rebuild of a junk transmission would cost $3500+tax, but it can vary extremely. If there's not much wrong with it, the price to fix it could be much, much cheaper than the $1700 it would cost for a swap that includes the parts. However with 200k miles and a "drivetrain fault", the transmission rebuild cost might be on the higher end (maybe closer to $3500 than to $1700), so you're right that a swap might be the cheaper option.

My point though, was that driving it could cause damage to other parts of the car (including the engine, I'll find the source for that), and not just the transmission and tranny fluid.