Got it thanks. Problem is whenever I’ve looked at mine while it’s hot, it’s tough for me to read because there’s fluid all the way up to the M which is about halfway up the stick on mine. But I guess I should just be focusing on the portion of the stick where the fluid is most “dense” (presumably at the bottom of the stick) even if there’s some fluid further up the stick.

And what should I actually use as the max mark on the stick? The letter x on the word max? Or somewhere higher than that?

 

The line just below the word "MAX" is the max line when hot, engine running, trans in P or N. You're right that is can be hard to tell exactly where to read the fluid on the dipstick since it picks up some from the sides of the dipstick tube when you pull it back out. I try to see where it's clearly solid fluid all the way across, like you say. Those two holes are also helpful, as they will fill in with fluid only when dunked in the pan and not just from picking up fluid from the sides of the dipstick tube.

Here's what I do with mine. As I said earlier, I like to leave a little head room for fluid expansion when I'm driving in soft sand in the heat of summer, even though I'm running an auxiliary transmission cooler.

 

Helps a bunch - thanks so much