3RD GEN AUTO TRANS FLUID CHANGE

I daily drove the truck as a work truck for the first 64,000 miles. I was averaging over 200 miles a day. The morning commute was 75 to 80mph no traffic. The afternoon was 3 hours of stop and go. I don’t baby the truck. It’s gets driven hard. I’ve towed a few light trailers with it, under a couple hundred miles.

I now use it for recreational fun and weekend driving.

I just cracked 70,000 on it. I plan on changing the auto fluid in 4000 miles when I do my next oil change. I want to check it at 20,000 and see how it looks, I might modify and change earlier or later depending on what the fluid looks like.

 

OK thanks.

 

You can do it at home as well with a couple buckets. Not sure if itll work in the Tacoma but I did do it on my Ford ranger and worked great. https://youtu.be/vT4VJtSnaig

 

PARDON MY LACK OF KNOWLEDGE:

1- level vehicle front to rear with a jack

2- If truck has tow package, pin the thermostat ,on the side of the trans, open using a screwdriver to push button in then put a piece of bailing wire through to hold tstat open. If you don’t have a trans cooler go to the next step.

3- I then overfilled trans while the vehicle was cold. I added 3/4 of a quart of new

4- Using the torque app I warmed truck up until trans was at 95 degrees then went under truck while it was still running and used a 5 mm Allen socket to pull the check plug out of pan.
SO,

I’m good with steps 1 and 2.

Step 3: I need to crawl under and see where is the filling hole, I asume is on the top of the transmission, and I have to add 3/4 of quart.. DO I HAVE TO CLOSE THE FILLING HOLE AGAIN?

Step 4: warm the trans: DOES idling the engine warm the trans? Or I have to drive it?

Then when the trans is warm ( I have dash command so I am able to know the temp) open the check plug with the engine running And when the fluid stop reinstall the plug.

And repeat until the oil drained is clean??

Please correct me if I am wrong..

Thanks!

 

I'd imagine u can run the bolt back in hand tight, for the fill hole.

Yes, idle.

Open the check plug until fluid slows to a drizzle. Making sure u don't go over the recommended temp.

Yes repeat

 

Drizzle was the wrong adjective, slows to a few drops is more like it.

 

I think you're right. I read somewhere on TW that the line which pumps fluid into the transmission will not have enough pressure to pump in new fluid at the same rate that it is pushing out the old fluid even with the truck on. Not sure if this will risk damage to the transmission since you might risk running the pump dry. I did find a video where an electric pump can be used so this could be a good way to go if someone does decide to do the 5 gallon bucket method to pump in new ATF.

https://youtu.be/NUDES72HW0w

 

Are you going to send a sample out for analysis or are you planning to let color be the only determining factor for whether oil is good or bad?

Not saying you fall into this group, but I see a lot of early maintenance on this forum but dont see anyone actually getting any measurements done to verify that it's actually needed. Color is not the best or even reasonable way to tell a fluids condition, unless your a dealer service tech trying to get people to replace their PS fuild or brake fluid every 10k miles.

 

Jeez dude my fluid looked significantly better than what you drained out in the OP on my 1st gen at 150k and it has never been changed and it lived a hard life. Do you think you did anything to cause the fluid to overheat?

 

Good to see some fluid change instructional write ups for the 3rd gen trucks .

One thing you guys cant rely on is basing your colour of fluid and mileage against another members transmission color of fluid and mileage .
It just doesnt work this way as there are hundreds of factors that come into play .
These are only a few
Outside temperature plays a massive factor in transmission wear wether below freezing or above 100F
Condensation
Adaptive Learning
Stop and go traffic
Highway driving
offroading
transmission break in
Towing

 

That's why I mention getting an analysis done, if you're really interested in getting an idea of how often YOU should change your fluids. So many people think it's better to change often and early. There is a point where the benefit isn't there though and you're just wasting money and material. If you want to change them sooner than recommended at least verify that it was necessary when your do so. That way the next time you cross another 10,15,20k whatever you'll know if it was needed at the last interval. If your driving remains the same and your analysis revealed everything was good on your last fluid change then theres a good indication early changes might not be needed in your case.

*edit
Ill add some personal experience where getting testing could be really useful. I know a lot of people are stuck on 3k oil changes and feel Toyotas 10k interval is too much. It's possible for both to be right or wrong. Years ago when I had my S2000 I used Mobil 1 motor oil. I began to notice that the oil would actually run low enough to not be on the dip stick at 1k miles after each change. The oil analysis showed that the oils viscosity was low. It turned out that the shear stabilty on Mobil 1 wasnt enough to prevent shear at the demand that 9k rpm was placing on it. Eventually oil was being lost due to shear and what I assumed was increased friction and heat that came with that. It was helpful to see that, switching to another brand remedied the issue entirely. With the wrong oil 3k intervals would be better. With the right oil it would be a waste.

 

If you never change your fluid and you grenade your transmission......the fluid lasted the lifetime of the transmission. Science.

 

This is one of the biggest complaints about Mobil 1 (which makes TGMO) especially on BITOG, it shears a lot in some vehicles. The main reason being it’s a group 3 oil (basically a synth blend) and Full Synthetic doesn’t mean 100% full synthetic.

As you may know the more robust Mobil 1 Annual Protection is POA based group 4 oil which has better properties and base stock. Other brands with a Polyol Ester based group 5 are top of the line, but expensive, ie Redline and Motul.

I’m not in the group of saying all oils are the same. That’s like saying all tires or all vehicles are the same, or anything else for that matter.

 

Actually if you are towing they change the trans fluid at 30,000 miles. See your warranty under special conditions such as towing.

 

Look at the maintenance schedule under special conditions such as towing. They change the fluid at 30,000 miles. So it is not lifetime fluid.

 

So you didn't read my whole post huh?

 

I recently did a single drain and refill (3 or so qts)... looked only slightly discolored and smelled like the new stuff... did this at 38k.

 

.......and which was it?

 

9000 rpm?

 

S2000s, early ones like my 2000 actually had a fuel cutoff at 9300 rpm.