2.7 auto transmission drain/fill.

My 2011 2.7 AT is coming up on 100k miles and I want to do some transmission maintenance. Fluid still looks fine and as far as I know, has never been changed.

I called my local dealer to ask them about AT maintenance and they told the fluid is lifetime and doesn't ever need to be replaced. Im very skeptical about a lubricating oil to last indefinitely. I have heard horror stories about full flushes ruining transmission but I personally have always done simple drain and refills on past vehicles.

My question is, at 100k miles with no previous maintenance and lifetime fluid, should I do a couple drain and refills with upcoming oil changes or just leave the fluid be?

Thanks a lot for any help.

 

4 quarts of Toyota T-IV transmission fluid and a new drain plug gasket from the Toyota dealer, and a skinny funnel

 

I do mine every 30k. Simple drain and fill.

 

Toyota came up with the lifetime trans oil scheme to satisfy the EPA and also they wouldn't have to pay as much carbon tax. It's one of the reasons Toyota came out with the WS trans fluid and was claimed to be a lifetime fluid. If you read the owner's manual closely they say "lifetime" under normal driving conditions, define "normal" and would be a way out of any warranty claim.

With all that said your transmission doesn't use WS so the "lifetime fluid" doesn't apply. Change it out.

 

At 60k I did a drain & fill. At 120k I pulled the pan and replaced the filter and gasket, just because I thought it was a good idea. Filter was fine, hardly any debris found around the magnets on the pan. (I haul occasionally but never tow with this truck.) Going forward, I'll do a drain & fill every 60k unless I suddenly start hauling more often or otherwise working the truck hard. In my mind there's no need to pull the pan again as long as I do these occasional fluid freshen-ups. At the 60k & 120k intervals, the fluid never looked or smelled burned, actually it looked pretty good. Just a PM thing.

 

I was planning on 30k trans oil changes, I bought the truck with 49k and drained it, 4 quarts T-IV and a new drain gasket,wasnt cherry red,looked dull although the truck was a repo'ed commercial used truck, it had a ball hitch so im assuming the truck was doing some towing. question, how do you like the AFE Pro-Dry air filter?

 

The aFe air filter is good, it's low maintenance with a thick gasket for good sealing on the filter housing. Every oil change I remove it and carefully blow the dust out of it. Of course no increases in horsepower or fuel economy. But I will never have to buy another air filter again, and I plan to drive this pickup until the wheels fall off.

 

I was just getting prepared to do the 4 quart swap on my 07 with 55K on it. When I pulled the dipstick (which I should have done before buying the fluid) the fluid looked fresh, nice cherry red. So I'm going to hold off a little longer. There was a little note on dipstick stating it never needs changing but I will down the road now that I bought the fluid.

 

I do mine every 30k miles, whether it needs it or not, mine also looks fresh cherry, since the whole trans holds about 10 quarts? or more and we can only pan drain the 4 quarts I thinks its a good idea at minimum to get 4 fresh new quarts in the tranny on a regular basis. I bought my truck used with 49k miles and the previous owner never did any 30k maintainence on it but the trans fluid at the time of draining it looked dark and appeared to be needing a change, but at the the 30k interval it drains cherry from then on.

 

Reviving the thread. 2009 A/T 2.7 base model. Is it really just the 4qt (128oz) and how hot are you getting the truck to check it?

Is it possible to accidentally drain only 3.75qt? The first time I did a train a couple weeks ago when it was in the low 70s outside, I measured 120oz (3.75qt) in one of those Encore paint buckets with the graduated markings on the side. I put 4qt in it because I always thought it read a little low on the sticks "hot" side. After I changed it, I was seeing as much as 1mm above the FULL hot mark on the stick after checking from a 100 mile trip making it nice and hot. It made me a little nervous. I kept an eye on it since then, but did another drain/fill this weekend. It filled the same bucket to at least 128oz (maybe just a hair more like 132oz), so I put 4qts in again. The bucket's marks stop at 120oz, I had to extrapolate, but who knows if any of the containers (including the T-IV bottles) are accurate. This time, it seems to measure about 3/4 up the hot marks, not making it above full. Could it be that the units are .25qt under filled from the factory as I've read stories about that? I havent gone on a long trip to check full thermal expansion and its going to be hot here for the next couple of months.

Fluid looks good. No leaks. Shifts normal. I'm just OCD with fluid levels and dont fully get automatic transmissions. Kinda wish I had a manual with this truck for the simplicity. I dont want to overtax the pump or seals by too much fluid. I had a bad experience once after changing the fluid in a dodge minivan, 2nd gear grenaded.....but then I found out that Dodge transmissions are junk and it probably wasnt my fault. I hate doing the fluid on my wife's RDX. You have to heat it, shut off and check the level after 30 seconds but before 90 seconds. Some kind of witchcraft Acura uses.

How sensitive is the fluid to temperature expansion?
It looks like the space between the hot marks on the stick is probably 8oz difference (.25qt). I feel like I'm missing exactly 8oz somewhere here.

Thanks.

 

I do a drain and fill every 50,000. It’s so easy with these trucks. Just remember the drain bolt is torqued to 15 ft lbs. that thing will strip easy.

 

That seems reasonable. I'm very easy on the truck and have never towed. I did/do replace the plug gaskets. You can definitely feel when they crush. I did the diff at 80k, it looked like new fluid. At 133k, I havent found significant wear on the rear drum or shoes, so they're original. However, I have put 3 water pumps in it, and thats easy to swap out.

 

^^
You've replaced 3 water pumps in 133,000 miles?

 

Yep. Never overheated but I did track a water loss for a while first. First one leaked at the weep hole around 70k. Replaced it with a Gates unit from Rockauto, but it turned out that I got burned because RA has some kind of thing going on with Gates where they're selling some poor Chinese makes with the Gates stamp on them. That one leaked within 10k miles AND the studs were so long they bound the pump. I had to remove that one and replace it with an Advance Auto branded one to do the RMA. I made them take it back as a defect. The replacement they sent me is definitely not the sub-par caliber that was originally sent. So, its technically had three pumps and I now have a spare sitting on the shelf. I wish I had bought an Aisin looking at it now. FWIW, make sure you get the metal rubber coated OEM gasket because it prevents error and simplifies installation. I can do this in 2 hours and I dont even remove the tensioner arm to get the unit out. IIRC, I dont think I remove the alternator either.

Don't buy RA Gates hardware for timing kits either. They SAY Japan on the box, but when you look at the parts they're really bad quality knockoffs. RA has told people that the kits are "assembled" in Japan. Glad we have chain systems.

 

Oh man, that sucks. Good thing they took it back and good thing it's not a terribly hard replacement. Hopefully your current set will last a while. Did mine the first time at 150k, took about 2 hours. Got the Aisin unit (with gasket) from Amazon for like $45 which I thought was pretty amazing price for quality parts. The Aisin name was ground off for some corporate/legal reason but it was definitely OEM stuff. I didn't remove the tensioner or alternator either, just the belt, radiator shroud, fan, then pump. Pretty easy overall.

 

My truck has about 124k mikes. I bought it with 112k. Its in decent shape. No clue what was done to it before me. I put all new fluids minus transmission and brake fluid i never touched yet. The steering fluid i used a baking thing to put fluids into a turkey or something lol and sucked out what i could. Replaced with fresh drove in circles for a few min n again n again n again n again. At least 5 times till it was good looking. To me the steering fluid is more important than most think. Its under an enormous amount of pressure n the smallest contaminants can really screw thing up. I have 1 zerk i couldnt get to take any greese any tips on this?

Should i replace the brake fluid? Id like to do that every 2 years. I did do the front branks n rotors about 6 months ago i think they were replaced with some junk ones n they shook like a mf'er. To the point the whole truck shook at about 65 mph and couldnt drive beyond that at all. After replacing those it was night n day. Put really pretty good ones on there. There advanced auto brand but their top tier ones which haven't rusted yet or anything here in ne pa thats pretty damn good for around here.

Never really messed with vehicles to much but these trucks are so easy to work on n theres so much info on them since Toyota doesnt totally redo thing every 2 years. The only thing i ever paid for was the middle leaf on both sides broke at about 120k. The left side went n then a few weeks later the right. The rest of them are in great shape. Really good suspension place near me though so no real need to replace the entire thing as i dont haul or tow with it im sure it was used for something but it looks like it never had a hitch attached. Id imagine id be able to see some marks from imthe attach them if it was.

Anyone knows of way to get new front bucket seats or at least just the driver seat (mine is a 2012 access can manual seat) thatd be aawesome. Thats the only crappy on my truck. Its not even in bad shape ripped or anything just worn down ya know. Someones fat ass sat in it for a lot of miles lol.

 

A good way to get most of the fluid out is to drain the pan clean it and the magnets put it back on. Fill it up with how much fluid came out I use a old 1 quart oil jug to keep track of how many quarts come out. Refill it with how much came out and add an extra quart. Then take the return life off from the transmission cooler and stick it into a 1 quart bottle and have someone start the truck and put the transmission in neutral. The pump will pump fluid out and when the quart fills up shit the truck off. Dump the quart and do it again until you use up all of the new fluid. Then take the truck for a drive get the fluid warm and check it. If it's low add some of it's high drain a little bit more out of the return line. I am flushing my transmission this weekend i bought 3 gallons of Valvoline max life full synthetic from wallmart for $18 a gallon.

 

this is not good for your transmission i heard

 

Go back to who you heard from and let me know if they'd like to buy a bridge I have coming available soon.

 

i heard it from car care nut on yt. what do you know that he doesnt?