Transmission Fluid Color

Hello guys, I have a 98 intrigue with 256,000 KMS, I went in for a oil change and they notice that the transmission fluid is orange in color with a hint of pick. What does this mean? Also they said that it is leaking. From what I have read perhaps water has gotten into the system is that a good assumption?
As far as performance the transmission is working fine. I will get it checked out next week I'm wondering how concerned should I be? I was planning on taking a 3-4 hour drive over the weekend.

Change the transmission fluid and filter. Drop the pan and clean it out. Replace it and refill the tranny with fluid. Start engine and let it idle for 5 to 10 minutes. Drop the pan again and replace the tranny filter. Replace pan gasket. attach pan to tranny and refill with tranny fluid and one bottle of LubeGard. Drive car and park it. 1 hour later, move car and look where it had been parked to see if any tranny fluid is on the ground. Check fluid level once a month. Follow instructions in car manual EXACTLY in order to obtain correct reading.

I used to goto GM to get my oil changed. After about 50k miles on the car at one oil change they said I needed to change my tanny fluid. They came out with this small ice cube tray thing (petri-dish) and showed my the colors. Of course they wanted $120 for the tranny fluid flush. At that time I was still paying monthly $331 on the car.

At 250km+ I would give in and have it changed. Filter and all. The tranny pan must come off and the sludge taken off. The gasket is reusuable, but since you have a leak I am assuming that is maybe the problem. Get the GM gasket since the aftermarket may be hard to find.

If the tranny is working ok, don't go crazy trying to look for trouble. 1st if you have not chaged the fluid in the last 4 years or 60,000 miles then you are do for a fluid and filter change or clean filter, and hopefully the leak is comming from the pan gasket and a new pan gasket should fix it. Here in the Toronto area a tranny fluid change is around $80

Thares an old saying " if it's not broke don't fix it" my saying is "if you look for trouble you will find it or created it" Just drive the sucker and enjoy it a 98 is almost worthless.

That's funny. Preventive maintenance is usually cheaper than breakdown maintenance. If I hadn't of kept my old 97 Cavalier in good shape there is no way that I would have gotten over 2000 for it, and that was only 2 months ago when I purchased my intrigue. I am a firm beleiver that if you take care of it, it will take care of you. If you abuse it and mistreat and mismaintain it it will mistreat you too.