DIY: Full Flush for Automatic Transmission

@TheDevilYouLove IR gun works fine. I have an UltraGuage that reads both ATF temp sensors. IR gun is only a degree or two off. Check the level at the low end and you'll be fine.

 

I was speaking with a co-worker who was telling me that his 17 year old Toyota Sequoia died after 283,000 miles. He said the tranny went up. He never serviced it. With regular pan drains and a flush or two, he’d probably still be driving it! Hope he enjoys those new car payments

 

I'm sure this has been mentioned several times in this thread....but Valvoline MaxLife is an excellent substitute for Toyota’s WS fluid. Been running it for years in my FIL's '04 Sienna and my daughter's '10 Yaris. Both are well north of 100k miles and shift flawlessly

At about $5 a quart....it's hard to beat

 

That’s what I ended up getting. I’ve noticed that it’s frequently sold out at my local Walmart. You gotta grab it when it’s in stock because it won’t sit on the shelf very long!

The 1 gallon jugs are $18 at Walmart, the auto parts store wants $28

 

It is a hassle but most auto part stores will price match. Don't know why they are all 10$ more for most everything. Probably lose alot of business.

 

Same thing at Meijer. Gotta grab it when you can.

Did a full service on my daughter's Yaris last winter.

 

Just did a full flush on mine this past weekend. I was planning on doing it then was forced to when I noticed that the hard lines (the front ones the flush is done with) were rusted and weeping fluid. Dealer was able to get the part next day so I sucked it up and spent the $100 rather than wait. Thankfully it didn’t let loose during vacation a couple weeks ago. Used the valvoline max life and everything went smoothly. An easy but time consuming procedure. Truck shifts so smoothly now. Old fluid was very dark so I’m happy I did this. Well worth the time and effort. @mountain lion thanks for the well written op.

 

Picked up the filter and gasket from NAPA today. One bolt hole on each of the 4 sides of the gasket is slightly smaller to ease installation (stick a bolt in those holes to keep the gasket lined up correctly). Also, the metal screen is very fine. Could almost make coffee with it. Def a good idea to replace every so often.

Count the number of bolts on your tranny pan. There’s a 19 bolt version and a 20 bolt version. Mine was the 20.

 

WalMart store didn’t have Valvoline Max life synthetic atf in stock so I ordered it from WalMart online. I wanted quart bottles so I could use my pump. It was $5/qt online with free shipping so I got 15 quarts. They mailed each individual quart in its own box. 15 boxes showed up.

Still an amazing deal, I’m just surprised how they shipped it.

 

My flush and filter change went well. Only issue was that a-holes at WalMart sent me 13 quarts of ATF and 2 quarts of 10w-40. Since I can’t read, I put two squirts of 10w-40 into my tranny before I realized it was the wrong color. Takes +80 squirts to get a quart in the tranny so hopefully a squirt is too small to matter.

No leaks so far. Level check was low so I am letting it cool and I’ll add more fluid after dinner.

Huge thanks to OP for this thread!

 

Next time get one of these and a 3/8” ID hose barb connector and pump your fluid through the return cooler line, it’s so much easier. I haven’t even pulled the fill plug the last couple times I’ve done this.

 

I like that!

 

I'm doing this service this week and have a siphon pump. Which one is the oil cooler return line to fill from?

 

Top line coming out of tranny (passenger side). Trace that up front. I think it’s the more forward/upper line at front of truck. You’ll have to remove the skid plate

 

remove your front grill https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...atic-transmission.68462/page-48#post-17084272

 

Hmmm, I removed 10 quarts and put back 11. Got temp 120 and no fluid came out the overflow hole when I removed it (with engine idling). I let it cool and added another quart. Got tranny oil temp to 120 (using Fusion app) and still no fluid coming out of overflow? Would be more than 2 quarts low from factory or am I doing something wrong?

Truck drives fine and shifts great (seems better than before the flush in fact).

 

If you have the towing package you’ll be collecting old atf from the bottom fitting and pumping fresh fluid back into the top. If you attach the lines as shown in this pic, you don’t need a hose barb.
Edit: if you have a newer truck the atf cooler will look different than the older trucks, but should hook up the same.

Newer style cooler

My truck, line connected to pump out old fluid. You could connect a hose using a hose barb to pump in new fluid or remove the other end of that rubber hose to connect to the hard line directly and skip the hose barb.

Another view of the old style cooler like my 07 has.

 

Awesome!! I gotta admit I wasn't 100% sure looking at those pics. Thanks for clearing it up!

 

If it were me, I would jump the wires and put the tranny in temp/check mode and try again taking the Fusion app out of the equation.

 

This would be my approach also. I have the fusion app and my plan was the next time I did a pan drain and replacement was to check that app against the obd wire jumping method. That’s the only way to confirm the app is correct.