I’m getting a local workshop to do oil changes for me next week and I’m wondering what the options are for measuring gearbox fluid temperature? The shop is run by a guy who is a Volvo specialist so he knows all about how to check the levels in the Aisin box but I’m not sure what diagnostic equipment he has, apart from the Volvo VADIS/VIDA, but I imagine he has some sort of generic workshop code reader. Should a generic code reader be able to extract ATF temperature? I’ve read here that some of the basic ones simply use coolant temperature as a proxy.

I’ll discuss this with him when I bring the FL2 to him but would like to have some idea of what might be possible. I could bring my laptop with SDD and Mongoose cable along but ....

I used my Torque Pro - it said it was monitoring gearbox temp but it mirrored the coolant temp exactly so I didnt believe it. Also the ATF felt cooler than the 60c the coolant was at when I undid the drain

Maybe the best way is to attach a temp sensor to the ATF pipe going to the ATF oil cooler. Ive got a sensor that I use to control heaters in the greenhouses and will attach that next time I do an ATF change. Jules

Thanks jules. I’d read that about Torque Pro - hence my query. What type of temperature sensor do you have in mind?

P.S. Would the inexpensive handheld infrared thermometers that you can get on fleaBay for a tenner or less do the trick? If so, what temperature of the gearbox casing should one aim for to have the ATF at or near 60 degrees?

I never used anything to measure the temperature when changing the autobox oil.
Drive in, with the engine at operating temperature, drain, fill, check oil, drive out.
I even let a little more oil inside the box and never had any problems and I do a partial change each service (about 10K km or about 6K miles)

Thanks alex_pescaru. I’ll probably find that the guy who's going to do it for me does the same with Volvos!

Probably, because with the engine at operating temperature, as the auto oil is cooled by the engine coolant, the auto oil will have about 80 degrees C.
And when you do a partial change, only about half of the oil will drain.
So, when filling the new oil you will combine 1/1 a 25 deg. oil with a 80 deg. oil, resulting about 50 deg. oil roughly.
During the oil level procedure, with the engine running, those 50 deg. will rise slowly, giving exactly what you need.
And a few millimeters more or less inside the box will make no difference as the oil will bounce inside box's pan as the engine's oil during car trips.