Tranny flush vs. Drain

Hello all. I have a 2001 Tacoma V6 4WD with 189,000 miles. Please dont judge me but the transmission fluid had never been changed. My question is should I change it at all? If so should I do a flush or just a gravity drain. I have done all other maint. myself like oil changes, air filters, fuel filters and o2 senors but for some reason the transmission just seemed too complex. I spoken to some mechanics who say with that may miles they would just leave it. Others says drain but not flush. What do you guys think about this? Thanks.

 

Wow. If it's burnt leave it in. It's brown in color. I would drain and fills a few times.

 

There's a fine line there, change it and hope it doesn't go out or don't change it and when it doe go out, rebuild and start over with good habits. Sometimes changing old fluid can do more bad than good. I work for Honda and see many transmission act up shortly after changing fluid that owners failed to take care of. If your fluid looks ok, then you should be ok for a change.

 

http://www.amsoil.com/faqs/ATF_and_Filter_Change_Procedures.pdf

 

Ok I will bite at this one .
25 years in the transmission trade , 17 of those years with my own trans shop .
Years ago , most of the shifting was controlled by hrydraulics or mechanical spool valves inside the valve body . When a customer brought their transmission in to have it flushed ( without removing the pan and filter ) there was a possibility of forcing the material from the bottom of the transmission pan into the valve body causing the spool valves to stick .


As transmissions get newer , electrical solenoids and sensors are taking place of the many mechanical spool valves in the valve body . In saying this , flushing a transmission can now be performed with less possibilities of hydraulic spool valves getting all gummed up and stuck.

If you plan to flush , get quotations from a shop that uses a flushing machine with the pan and filter removed .
Once the pan and filter have been removed , connect the flushing machine to the filter suction line in the valve body casting , start the vehicle and flush away .
Dont go to a shop that uses a cooling line flushing machine .
All Flushing machines use your transmission pump to mix/force the old oil out and your engine has to be running to turn the transmission pump .

If the truck was mine or a customer of mine , I would get that old stuff outta there .

There are 11 duties transmission fluid carries out inside the transmission .New fluid will help to prevent transmission failure .

 

Take the return line off, start the truck and pump 4 qrts out, shut the truck off and fill with 4qrts. Repeat till fluid is clean.

 

i had 225k on mine and i just drained it and brought a new filter and gasket and replace it with toyota tranny fluid. i have put 50k on since then with no problems. i brought this sr5 new back in 02, my son is driving it now. make sure you clean the tranny pan really good and take your time.

 

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I followed this advice in Feb. and did a simple drain and fill. I did not notice anything like metal shavings in the drain pan. The fluid was almost black when I drained it but I it has been 6 months now and the tranny is running fine. Cant believe as good of care I take of my truck I did not do this sooner. Just wanted to say a thank you to all those who replied to my question.

 

I would do it again if all is good. I do mine every 30K although I was going to do it this last time and the fluid was bright red. Ill push it to 60K. I use Amsoil Universal ATF.