Sooo.. I was driving up to Pike Peak one day and almost to the top, I get the flashing hot oil indicator under the odometer and the chime goes off. Pull off the road and let it cool down a little. Took it to the mechanic who said I needed to get it to a transmission place, which I did. Trans was rebuilt... it needed it with how hard we play and was at 150k miles. Everything has been great but really had not gone off-road with her. We went on a mountain dirt road recently that wasn't difficult at all. A short way up the road, same thing! I searched here and see trans coolers suggested. Have had the radiator replaced as well. So with the rebuild tranny and new radiator, really frustrating. My son tells me now that even driving up a 6% grade on road the temp gauge is showing it heating up. Any other suggestions that I might not be thinking of? Really don't want to drop in a new engine. It's a 2007 Unlimited X. Thanks!

 

Shouldn't happen if you're in 4lo. If you're in 4hi, it'll keep happening.

 

Having driven up Pike's Peak, he was probably in 2WD, same with the 6% grade roads.

I wouldn't rely on the trans cooler at the bottom of the radiator. Get yourself a good stacked plate trans cooler.

 

So I am guessing that it really is the tranny that is heating up, not the engine?

 

Yes this is hot transmission fluid light. Had the same issue on my 07 tranny cooler fixed the problem never to return. For me 4lo, was when I noticed the problem.

 

This issue affects 2007-2011 JKs with automatic transmissions. "Hot Oil" refers to the trans oil demand by the time that indicator lights up and the chime goes off the trans is REALLY hot! If let unheeded the trans oil will boil out of the fill tube and pour onto the passenger side exhaust manifold. The resulting fire will quickly burn through the exposed fuel line, which is right behind the exhaust crossover pipe. Fuel under high pressure will then spray onto the hot exhaust, just adding to the conflagration. This series of brilliant engineering faux pax / stupidity comes to us courtesy Chrysler bean counter engineering, who not only conceived of the series of mistakes, have managed to dodge several Federal investigations. The sum total of recalls resulted in the hot oil light and removal of a skid plate, which had nothing to do with the underlying defect.

The fix is to install an auxiliary transmission cooler sooner rather than later. Any quality cooler kit will get the job done. Many online threads on installing one, actually pretty simple. I initially ran a Hayden cooler (B&M style) mounted to some home made brackets. I later replaced it with Mopar's auxiliary cooler kit as I needed to recover some real estate for a power steering cooler. Get one installed, no more worries. Chrysler has been criminally negligent on this issue, thankfully no one has been killed in these fires..yet.

 

Thanks for the input, I recently had the same indicator pop up on my 2010. I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend....

 

right here -> https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/jk-w...-cooler-37839/

 

Thanks all!! You guys are awesome!

 

X2, first week owning my 09 JKU (purchased new) and going up a rather pedestrian mountain road and she drops into limp mode. Dealer says shift points are off on tranny, reset and happened again. Did the above cooler writeup and haven't had a problem since, only had the problem in 2wd and 4hi.