So recently I have been smelling natural gas in my car. It turns out the smell was coming from the transmission. I drain the fluid and that is what i was smelling. The fluid was very dark in color and almost water like thin. The good news is there were no metal flakes in the fluid.

My question is should i be able to smell that through the tranny at all? The reason i ask is i was unable to find any leaks from the tranny. My thought is that the fluid was actually "burning" causing that smell. I am of course just guessing here but wondering what would cause this to happen? The fluid has about 12000 miles on it total.

 

Depending on what they put in gear oil it can be stinky and the transmission has an air vent located directly in front of the driver.