80,000 miles and I did the diff oil change

2007 Tacoma
I really don't know why I have not done this sooner, I guess I just didn't think about it. I don't wheel off road much any more. When I had my jeep all lifted and such I wheeled alot, I was more in tune with this I guess.
I stumbled upon the sticky about diff, trans gear oil change and thought, man I need to get this done. asap.

Results, went to Autozone, puchased the regular 75-90 gear oil, don't have the ls so no worries there.

Rear- drained and it look like black coal oil, nasty with the usual stank that gear oil has. The plug w/magnet had very little on it. suprised slightly.

Front- sucks taking off the skid plate. Front was real simular to the Rear with a little more metal on the magnet.

Trans case- pulled the plug and brand new oil came out. It looked as good as what I was putting back in it. Really suprised.

Anyway that was my findings, gonna pay more attention to this area now for sure, gonna drive this truck till the wheels fall off. After all that is why we buy Toyotas.

 

Got mine done at Speed Freek's house yesterday in Vista... Front and rear oil was like you described, but very little on the plug magnets. No sign of water contamination (I did the rear breather mod).

Skip plate was mangled from my type of off roading, so it took a little extra work to get it back on. I used 75-140 on the rear and 75-90 on the front, all Mobil 1 synthetic. The transfer case was like yours, looked new... clean oil (at 39,000 miles)... Put 75-90 Mobil 1 in it.

Need 3 qts. for the rear diff., and 3 for BOTH the front diff. and transfer case (1.6 + 1.1 qts.). Took Jason a little over an hour to change all three for me... Good job!

Pep Boys has Mobil 1, 75-90 for $10.99 and 75-140 for $19.99 a qt.

30,000 miles is the recommended change for these three cases. DO IT!!

 

I had mine all completed at the stealer here in Monterey aka 60k service... Funny how my maintenance guide for 08 doesn't recommend this?! When does the "life time" tranny fluid need to be changed

 

Every 30k if you tow or wheel a lot.

 

'05 + automatics have 100,000 mile synthetic tranny fluid. I had my '05 tranny changed at 100,000 miles (never a tranny problem), and now I have a 2010 with just 39,000 miles on it...

 

I changed my tranny fluid, and power flushed at 70k.

It was gross.

I thought diff oil was supposed to be changed every 20k or so.

 

I had planned on doing this when I first got my truck(36k miles). Been lagging it, Ill do both front/rear diff and tranny alltogether here in a few thousand miles when it hits 50k

 

Fluid change schedules are largely dependent on usage. Hard use = more frequent changes. I change my rear diff every year and all the rest of the gear boxes every 2 years (hard use). Oil is cheap and the work is easy. I do all mine on a time schedule rather than actual miles. It's easier for me to remember, and it's easier to be crawling around under there in the fall than the winter.

 

For GEAR OIL in the differentials and transfer case:

The owner's manual service recommendation is only for it to be 'inspected' every 30,000 miles. Speed Freek recommends changing it every 30,000... with Mobil 1, 75-90 or 75-140 for heavy duty use (rear only).

For Automatic Tranny (2005+), flush and change every 100,000 miles with synthetic Toyota fluid. Why the Automatic is a sealed unit with no dip stick or fill port, like the earlier Tacos have.

 

This is bull, by the way, in case you were wondering. Plenty of Toyota "World Standard" ATF used fluid analyses over on BITOG. The additive pack tends to break down by about 60k with normal usage, 30 to 40k with frequent towing. Transmissions don't have to deal with the byproducts of combustion like engine oil does, the fluid is essentially there for lube only, so you can go for a while on paper thin additive levels. Once any additives that affect viscosity characteristics start to break down though, then you're accelerating tranny wear.

"lubed for life" is a marketing ploy. Toyota makes an excellent quality transmission, and they deal with deferred maintenance better than others. That said, this fluid is NOT good for as long as they say. I plan for flushes every 30k like any other vehicle. Transmissions are expensive, fluid is cheap, and the key is keeping it pink (or red, in the case of Toyota's WS).

Just thought people would like to know.

 

ive been putting off doing mine as well..I need to get it done.

 

As far as diffs, for my usage they need to be swapped every 10k or so. Usually that's the neighborhood of annually.

 

2nd gen 4 banger autos have a tranny dipstick.

 

So for the trans flush is it just a fluid change or is do you need to drop the pan and change the filter also? Thanks!

 

I drop the pan, and rinsed the filter in mineral spirits. I ordered a filter kit and when it came in, the filter was the wrong size so I called a dealership and thats what they said they did. It held just over 3 quarts BTW and a good investment for refill it a pump soap despenser lookin thing that screw onto bottles and has a hose on the end. It was a bit too big to go in the fill hole so i took the guts out of an ink pen and stuck it in the hose and it fit like a glove. also rtv'd the gasket when I put the pan back on

 

How many miles is the Mobil 1 gear oil good for? I am at 85,000 miles now on the Mobil 1 oil Speed Freek installed. @Speed Freek

 

There is a reason why I changed out my rear diff fluid at 6k miles... break in oil is NASTY.

Front diff got about a half change when i had to replace the front diff bushing in it and half of it drained out.

 

I love it when stuff like that happens!

 

Another note if you have aftermarket gears you should read what the mfg recommends. ECGS says 85-140 weight oil, and it can't be synthetic.