Transmission Fluid Temperature Sensor

Measures the temperature of the fluid in the gearbox, which the module needs because fluid viscosity — and therefore the pressure a given shift requires — changes substantially with heat. It also gates torque converter lock-up, which is withheld until the fluid is warm. A thermistor, so its resistance falls as temperature rises: a short to ground reads as impossibly hot and makes the module protect a transmission that is fine, while an open circuit reads as impossibly cold and stops lock-up ever happening, which shows up as worse economy and higher cruising revs with nothing else apparently wrong.

Also known as: tft sensor, trans temp sensor, fluid temperature sensor, atf temp sensor, transmission temperature sensor

Referenced by 33 codes

WhatsApp Telegram X Email

Codes involving this component (33)

Other components in Transmission

Information, not instruction

CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.

Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.

Working on this component

Be the first to write this up

Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.

What makes one worth reading:

The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
What you measured, not only what you replaced.
What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.