WS ATF does not require any flushing or changing during the life of vehicle

Well I have been reading all the post about refilling the atf after I drained some of it during oil change. Some of you know have been there already.

I found an interesting bulletin that states:
ATF-WS does NOT require any flushing or changing during the life of the vehicle.

see attached doc. Is this true?

 

Crazy

 

I would still change it, preventive maintenance, tough a bit involved.

 

Sweet..I hope I'm the first guy to 250k on the original AT fluid.

 

Lovely...you saw it, in writing. On the Toyota approved document. Why would it not be true?

Is there ANY one in this forum qualified to dispute the veracity of the document?

 

The only thing that I noticed was that this document applies to vehicles with an automatic transaxle which tells me it's for front drive cars where the transmission and differential share the oil supply. Rear drive vehicles have an automatic transmission, not transaxle. Could be semantics ...

 

That just doenst make sense. How can you run the transmission on the same fluid for the life of vehicle? There has to be some wear and tear.

 

Of course "lifetime" is way past warranty. I would agree you don't have to change it during warranty period.

Oh.. I figured it out.

I was about to say, can you get the bits of clutch out of it and change the filter without changing the fluid? BUt... if the filter is adequate.. synthetic ATF can easily last as long as the clutch packs as long as the filter doesn't clog. SO at whatever the life of the transmission clutches is, you change your clutch packs and oil.

You don't change it in manual transmissions (with any pre-determined interval) why would you in an AT (filter aside).

Maybe toyota knows something about the amount of crude oil left under the surface of the planet

 

Of course there's wear! Don't you think Toyo's engineers have a good model to predict what it will be? Well, I do...and they are doubtless very willing to stand up in court and defend that model.

The way I read that bulletin is: Toyota is claiming that using the same fluid, 'normal' wear will be such that over the NORMAL service life of the vehicle the transmission will function 'normally'.

The question becomes...what is the normal life of the vehicle and what is normal in-service use? If your expectations are beyond normal...or your useage is beyond normal...then service it in ways that are beyond normal.

By the way...if you do some research on ATF-WS you'll find that it is a relatively low-viscosity ATF for fuel economy and it is thought to be a high quality synthetic.

 

I'm going to change mine at 100k. You may not have to but if your only changing it every 100k or so then I am willing to spend the money for piece of mind.

 

Use the AMSOIL low visc ATF they came out with this year instead. Completely compatible.

 

Good info.i have been told you never change the ATF too,and then i asked when my tranny goes out will Toyota replace it free of charge? I did not know about this or check into it untill the first schedualed service,if i would have known this issue wiht the tacoma tranny i would not have purched the Tacoma i have now,i see some where in the future a pretty big repair bill for a tranny, i hope not. P.S. the dealers have told me it is synthetic fluid.

 

the trans will make it to 100k without servicing,but the damage will already be done.

 

this

 

Under addtional maintenance items for special operating conditions (towing) my 2007 Scheduled Maintenance Guide says "replace transmission fluild or oil at 60,000 miles.
The next mention of tranny fluid is at 90,000 miles. Here it says to "inspect" transmission fluid or oil. Under special operating conditions (towing) it says replace manual transmission oil.
The next mention of tranny fluid is at 120,000 where it says under special operating conditions (towing) to replace transmission fluid or oil.

I plan to get the fluid flushed/replaced every 50,000.

 

where do you check tranny fluid there is no dipstick in my 2006 tacoma auto trans

 

and is it the same as the older trans to change fluid and filter

 

where do you check tranny fluid there is no dipstick in my 2006 tacoma auto trans and is it the same as the older trans to change fluid and filter

 

where do you check tranny fluid there is no dipstick in my 2006 tacoma auto trans and is it the same as the older trans to change fluid and filter

 

You have to remove the over-flow plug, but it also has to be at operating temperature. use the search function.