Tranny Oil Change...DIY?

How many of you guys here have done (DIY) the Tranny Oil Change on your truck? How many miles u have when u did? Did u have any problem after a weeks/months?

 

This is a ten minute job...loosen fill plug, remove drain plug, clean and replace drain plug with a dab of gasket goo, refill.

Howard

 

are we taking AT or MT...I was thinking MT

 

on an auto it's a bitch... recommended service is when? 100k me thinks?

I'd let the dealer do it...

 

100K interval is BS.
It should be 60K
Also dealer is fine if you find one that will do this since tech guys dont like to touch those transmissions.

 

Its just such a pain in the ass without normal fill

 

i paid $190 for mine..all new toyota fluid.

next time, i may try it myself..it didnt seem that hard..not even for a full flush. i did it at 65k...but i use my truck in some nasty shit.

 

How many quarts did u guys used for just empty and fill up only?

 

So, a year ago or so I took my pickup in for a "flush" and all they did was a drain and fill.....even though they said they flushed it, the service ticket only charged 4qrts of WS fluid and none of the oiler cooler lines had been touched. After a conversation with the service manager, he admitted that they do not do flushes on the auto tranny. Pretty lame IMO and false advertising but oh well...

Question is, now I want to just do my own drain and fill. It should be up to spec with the correct amount of fluid since the dealer did the initial change.

Can I just drain the pan, measure how much came out, and add in the same amount drained. I just dont want to get involved with jumping the computer and getting the temp up to spec. Damn transmission scares me to work on but I dont want to pay the dealer to do it again

 

How about going to an actual reputable shop rather then the dealer to flush a auto tranny?

 

x2

 

My dealer told me the same thing this week when I picked mine up after bringing it in to get mine flushed. I figured they didn't want to touch it but yet I emphasized flush when I made the appointment and when I spoke to the service manager when I dropped it off. The paperwork only showed a drain and fill for about $80 less than quoted.

 

Dealers are not equipped and Toyota specifies NOT to flush the autos in these trucks.

Frankly, I agree with that. A flush is never really necessary in a modern auto trans, only regular drain and fills. How regular depends on usage of the vehicle.

If you DD your tacoma and it never leaves the street, I'd drain/fill every 50 to 60k. If there is hard use like towing, I'd drain/fill every 30k. If there's severe use like offroading that will likely incur high-heat situations as well, I'd do it every 20k or so.

Personally, I drain/fill once per year or every 10k, whichever comes first. But my truck does hardass work on a regular basis.

 

Most service centers have a flush unit for trasmission flushes; they just hook up the in/out lines to the radiator and cycle enough fluid to flush everything. Then do the same to the radiator itself. And done.

Toyota Dealerships, specifically, don't have equipment appropriate for our trans because Toyota claims trans fluid flushes for these transmissions to do not exist as a service item...only drain/fills.

So I guess the technical answer is if you had a tech that knew their ass from a cowbell, knew the vehicle well enough, and knew the equipment well enough, they could do the flush. But they won't, because of organizational/company policy, in most instances.

You can always take it to another service center for a flush, but most of them are confused by the fact that 2gen autos don't have a dipstick for level check, but rather a secondary fill-level plug that is only accurate at a certain temperature. For this reason, many non-dealer service options will not service the trans with a full flush, but will instead simply drain/fill.

Seriously though, modern machining and materials specs are so precise that new auto-trans do not shed nearly the volume of particulates that they did in the 70s/80s when they were still relatively new in mass market vehicles. What particulates they do shed at spec'd to be held in suspension by the fluid or internal screens/filters during the original engineering of the part.

This is why Toyota claims the transmission never needs to be serviced under normal use, only regularly inspected.

The problem comes when you drift outside their definition of normal fucking use. Apparently, anything you would want four wheel drive or a truck bed for is classified as "abuse".

 

Some dealers do have machines that will work. Being in a more urban area raises your chances.

Most will try to sell you *away* from it as it's not scheduled service. But who knows...all stealerships are a little different.

 

Seems you get a different answer with whoever you talk to at the dealerships. My service manager said they do a complete flush and the guy at the counter wrote it up as such. The mechanic said they only do drain/fill on our trucks. I ended up having it done at around 19,000 miles which was 5 years. I think Toyota recommends every 60,000 or 72 months...whichever comes first.