Update: they checked tranny fluid. 2016 w/ tow package...One quart low.

leaf spring U-Bolts should be 52 ft. lbs. is that correct?

 

Yes, but since the trucks have been driven, unlike at the factory fill, the cooling circuit would have filled since fluid has now circulated through that system no?

 

I saw posting the 3rd gen says 37lb. the 2nd gens are 55lb. lift kit installs I see are saying 100lb for ubolts. I did mine at 70lb and few others did as well

 

odd, I don't have the paper work from Saturdays check up with me but I
could swear because it stood out from everything I've read that it said
leaf u-bolts checked and are at proper torque of 110 ft lbs.

 

if they are supposed to be 110lb then toyota didnt even do aything to them. Mine took a bunch of turns to even get to the 70lb mark

 

Dealer says spec is 52ftlbs

 

I'll check the paper work when I get home tonight. Have you seen anything documented
for that?

 

Thank you for your help.

 

Exactly. The reason IMO that he was pissed is because of this thing called money. When a consumer takes a vehicle to any dealership, there are two ways (rates) that a mechanic can be paid. One is called customer pay (CP), and the other is warranty (W). Imagine you're a mechanic and you have the choice of being paid $40 an hour, or $15. Which would you pick? W pay rates are set by Toyota Corporate, CP rates are set by the dealership. When I worked at a dealership it was a daily battle to get mechanics to accept W work. Simply revealing the inner workings of the dirty dealer game.

 

The cooling system should be full but how can we guarantee the thermostat opened since you have owned the truck . I believe the thermostat opens at 215 degrees . Members who are low on fluid would have to go on a long hot drive to get the stat to open which would fill the void in the air cooler .
I suppose you could cheat and push the thermostat in when the truck is running ,. This way you will know the thermostat opened and filled the air cooler void with fluid so when you go to check your fluid , you can skip the pinning process .
If you skip pinning , there may be a possibility of a small air lock . Fluid only travels one way in the transmission cooling system . Fluid will not back feed into the air cooler . It would account for 1/4 quart low . Throughout the posts , some guys are going back to the dealer twice and finding their fluid low both times .

 

Yes and No. the Technician documented it verbatim, on my service records. I doubt he would write down arbitrary Spec numbers if he didn't know what he was doing.

 

Were did you find the torque on the u-bolts to be speced 52 foot pounds? All of the threads I've seen on here said the spec was 37 pounds, just like mine was and I took it up to 55

 

Never heard that before. Had no idea the techs pay-rate changed
depending on what work he performed.

 

The Toyota Technician checked his instructions for the spec and put it in plain English there on my service records. Look down in the bottom 1/3rd of the document.

 

Just received word that Toyota corporate extended the transmission warranty to 7 years / 100k for a member who had low fluid .
It,s a start .
See post 49 here https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ck-surges-forward.414003/page-3#post-12037166

 

That's what I did, I engaged temp mode, then crawled under and pushed in the thermostat for 2 or so minutes, it only compressed about 1/8"

 

Not only is there two pay rates, each and every repair action is allotted very specific times. Let's say that the tech is told to check your trans fluid (as discussed here) and check your front end alignment. Toyota Corporate has already studied and written down exactly how long it should take to accomplish those tasks. So if the tech checks your trans fluid in six minutes (supposedly using the proper procedure) and the "procedure" book advises that it should take 60 minutes, that tech just made a profit by doing that check more quickly than the Corporate book time.

Conversely, if a tech takes a job that he KNOWS is a pain-in-the-ass to get done in accordance with the "procedure" book time, he will AVOID doing it at all costs. Your younger, less experienced techs end up taking all the warranty work, and the older, smarter, more cunning techs fight over the CP.

 

Not designed to be a consumer-friendly system is it...

 

My truck was at the dealership all weekend without much of an update, other than they opened up a TAS case and needed to talk to Toyota. My service advisor said I'd get an update Monday (yesterday), but he'd be off so he'd come in to follow up or expect a call from somebody else. Didn't hear a peep so I gave them and still couldn't get an update; got frustrated so I went to pick up my truck. Received a call today and was told they shouldn't have released my truck, that it was low on transmission fluid, to take it back, and they'd have a loaner for me.

I wasn't surprised it was low, just mad that it took this long to get a dealership to perform a simple task. They need to get input from Toyota on what to do next; which I thought would be to top it off and call it a day, but we'll see what they say. Whatever the case maybe, I'm gonna talk to TC and see if I can get an extended warranty on the transmission because who knows how it'll hold up in the long run now. My truck currently has 6,3xx miles and brought this issue up to a dealership when I had 3k - 4k miles IIRC.

I read 52 ft lbs in some other threads, but thanks for posting the pic of your work order.

I torqued mine to 52 ft lbs and all but 2 were loose, a few were really loose while the others weren't too far off.

 

that's nuts. If they know it's low on tranny fluid and shouldn't have been release to
you why not, umm, fill it maybe and let you come get your brand new truck!?

Good luck on the ext. warranty, 6300 seems like allot of miles with low tranny fluid. Do
we know what the minimum level is before damage will start to occur?