advice on changing fluid

ok so i have 97,000 miles on my 05 tacoma. and i love it. but, the dealership wanted a lot of money to change my transmission fluid. and i dont want to pay a lot. where i work we have a nice garage and TONS of tools. it is nice being at a coast guard station, and even better with people that love working on there trucks. but anyways. i would like to know would you just drain and top off your transmission fluid or do a flush? another thing if you have just the regular fluid from toyota or would you change to synthetic? thanks for your help.

 

thanks for the help but that is how to change your diff fluid.

 

There is a how to here on doing a tranny flush, try to search for it, at this point you can do either a flush (first choice), or two drain and refills spaced a few thousand miles apart, it will roughly get you the same result. I would recommend using toyota's fluid personally, IMO

 

There a sticky on top of the page for a how to

 

If none of the fluids have been replaced.

Yes flush the trans via the method of removing the cooler return line and capturing fluid that way.

Yes flush the power steering fluid, similar technique as the trans, remove the rezzy return, catch what drains. Someone posted about this.

Replace the axle fluids.

Replace the coolant.

FWIW, I have replaced the rear axle fluid with Mobil 1, Power Steering with M1 ATF, coolant with Peak Global, and will be replacing the automatic transmission fluid very soon as time permits with Mobil 1 ATF.

Yes this violates every rule of the owners manual, but researching other sites in regards to the quality of the oem stuff and additional cost of oem fluid (except WS), has me preferring better quality for less money.

You may want to consider installing a second filter in the transmission and power steering system if you plan to keep the truck.

PK

 

I've you've never done a drain and top off it won't get you much to start now after 97K miles. So IMO do a complete fluid change which means a flush.

Then do the drain and top off, about 3 quarts, every 20-30K miles and keep the fluid fresh.

Use only Toyota WS; the cost isn't that much (it's really very good stuff in spite of what some think) and then you'll know you're always using exactly what's rated for your tranny. But best thing of all, you're never mixing ATF types which can lead to genuinely flaky shifting problems. Or maybe not... but you'll have peace of mind and know that can't be the problem.

 

cool thanks for the help i will get the toyota fluid and flush it. then do it every 30k miles from now.