I bought my 1998 at 105K and thought the ATF was fairly clean - red, but a little on the deep read instead of light red/pink. I decided to flush anyway. To my surprise, the garbage in the sump was black! 10 quarts and 30 minutes later...

Klaus
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1967 220 belonging to C.A. lives on

at 125k I certainly wouldn't consider a deal breaker, but I would still make it a priority job as soon as I took possession of the car.

Will it still be pink? In fact unless you check it with a very white wipe (like a piece of white printer paper or something like it) you probably will think it's red /enough/ - don't be fooled into thinking it's still okay. When you get it out and into a clear bottle you'll see how dark it really is and you'll be damn glad you got it out of there!

Very white printer paper will probably show you some black flecks/streaks which is your hint that the fluid is toast. At that mileage though I wouldn't even think about it much - just change it.

Unless there's an obvious problem with the trans which you will quickly find with a decent test drive, the original fluid will not have worn out enough to cause any internal damage/clogging/etc yet.
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1998 V70 AWD->FWD->AWD Turbo 220k+