Help found a leak!

LOL.. why, yes, we do. Reminds of that old movie with people shrunk down, put in a micro submarine and injected into Martin Short. He was at a bathroom urinal talking to the folks inside via a mic and the old guy next to him says "play with it, son, but don't talk to it". LOL.

 

Sure... lots of simple pumps. I have a couple in my garage. But if you happen to have one with you... and the correct tool to pull the plug... and some trans fluid, and don't have a screaming baby (and wife!) along when you develop a leak on a road trip somewhere 5 years from now you'd have to be a double Eagle level boy scout. Plus without a dipstick... or the time to go through the check procedure, you still wouldn't know for sure if it even needed fluid.

 

I can’t speak for to Toyota on what they were thinking.

I assume, it would be something like this.

1. Chances of a leak or failure before 5yr/60k “That isn’t owner induced”? -Not likely.
2. The chances that the fluid is too low or too over filled from the factory? -Not likely.
3. If #2 above does happen, will there be catastrophic damage? -Not likely.
4. The average consumer will check the fluid? -Not likely before warranty expires.
5. Avg. user wants to check the fluid, but can’t, and takes it to the dealer? - More than likely.
6. Cared what the rest of us think? -Not likely, we are the majority.

I don’t hold it against them, it’s business.

I just don’t like the design. It isn’t user friendly. (For me)

 

I still don't see how it makes business sense, especially for warranty work. Whenever you have a trans issue the very first thing you do is check the fluid level. With a dipstick that is a 30 second thing. With our trucks it is far more complicated and time consuming. Even once you get the thing in the air and the plug off and the engine at the proper temp you STILL won't know how low it is until you refill it. Just makes no sense to have to do all that just to check level. It's one thing when they can bill the customer but for warranty work it's on them. Maybe they are just so confident in the reliability that they don't see that happening much within the warranty period. And so they opt to save the $10/truck for the dipsticks? Just seems foolish to me.

 

I’m not arguing the fact a dip stick is easier. It is for the user. (Like me)

Toyota uses the scan tool to know when to check the fluid.
And as far as not having a dipstick? Well, you don’t have worry about making the tube fit.
Or adding a stick, or and added potential point of a leak. (unless the tube was physically boned to the pan)

And the fact that a lot of people read the Transmission Dip Stick like the Oil.
With the truck off -COLD. Which isn’t correct.

I guess the point is, for us DIY people, it made it more “difficult”.
For the majority of people, they will never know the difference. And would probably be willing to pay less up front to NOT have a dipstick they will never use.

 

All of those trucks that came out of the Toyota factory in SA, that were low on transmission fluid, would have been super easy to rectify and or find the problem before leaving the factory, had they had a dip stick. The damage and warranty claims caused a lot of upper management heads to roll at that facility due to that fact. As well as too many people dealing with transmission related issues of all types.

When you advance to Master level, but forget novice curriculum.....

 

I totally agree. Not talking about typical owners or even about us. The point I was making is that any warranty transmission diagnosis begins with a level check and this is on the dealer and Toyota and they are basically adding 30 unnecessary minutes of labor that they will need to cover. Maybe the number of cases is too few to offset the cost of dipsticks? I dunno how sharp the bean counters' pencils are.

 

Or saving a nickel costs you $100.

 

Yes!

#savethedipsticks #dipsticksmatter

Not thinking well since 2005 on the v6 and in 2016+ they added the I4 to the dipstick delete club.

 

I agree. Make things easy to maintain, and the chances it gets maintained goes up exponentially.

As for this, I don’t know?
Evidently they felt the 3rd Gen didn’t need one as well?

It’s not just Toyota. A lot of companies have made the transition to a “sealed unit”.

I believe BMW has an engine with NO Oil dipstick. I mean, really?

 

So they deleted it on the I4 too.
Jeez, I figured it would happen. I just hope me it wouldn’t. As I toyed with the idea of buying 2WD 2.7 at one time.

At this point, I’m leaning Hybrid small car. Of course I would be keeping the Tacoma.

 

Surely the BMW has a low oil light, then? Not sure I'd want to rely on BMW electrics for that. LOL. A friend had a BMW a few years back that supposedly had a 25,000 mile oil change interval. That was nuts, even with the specified synth... but it sort of made sense because the changes were free. BMW said that was technically OK but in reality they were just being cheap and probably realized that engine problems still wouldn't manifest themselves until it was out of warranty when the bill would be on the customer.

 

How long can i run it with this issue?

 

Until you have a bigger issue.
No offense, that’s the best answer I can give you.

Or you could play around with jumper wires, crawl in and out from under the truck and check the level. Than do it all over again, to be sure the level is right.

My advice is, don’t drive it too far or too long like that.

 

These need to be in the A750 thread that I recently created. Love them!!! #savethedipsticks #dipsticksmatter

 

Could it have happened when they were replacing the u joints and carrier bearing. Or wear and tear on seal with wore out carrier bearings?

 

I'd say go ahead and drive it locally but don't do any road trips unless you plan to carry tools and a fluid pump. Locally should be OK with a slow leak but you might want to top up the fluid a couple of times at say 1 week intervals to see how bad the leak is. And have a look once in awhile to see if the leak may be getting worse. In my experience it doesn't take losing too much fluid... maybe a quart or 2... before it starts acting up. When it does you'll notice it first on curves like interstate ramps as the fluid sloshes to one side. I drove mine like that for a couple of weeks while I tried to figure out what was going on and it didn't damage the tranny.

Pro tip: to make checking the trans fluid easier get yourself a ScanGage 2 and enable the trans temp (TFT) function.

 

Thats what i was looking for. I appriciate the help

 

LOL... I had the same reaction, but it wasn't immediately but later when I thought I'd check the trans fluid. Then I had ANOTHER OMG WTF moment some years later when I went looking for the fuel filter.

 

It's all about the bottom line. They expect you to bring it into the dealer.

I had a transmission shop guy do some work on my Sequoia and he used a small Honda power steering pump and a drill to push the Atf into the trans.