I have changed mine on my camry every 75K. Mine says never change but I don’t buy that the fluid will never break down. I think the issue is, if you let your fluid change go too long, the fluid will become gritty from the clutch fibers. Then you change out this gritty fluid with fresh fluid and your clutch may start to slip. There is also the issue with shops doing a “flush” and introducing contaminates and the wrong kind of fluid.
I drain my fluid. There is a 10mm plug on my camry. Newer cars may not have a plug and that is okay. After draining my pan, I fill the pan with fresh fluid. I have been using the Oreilly brand Global fluid and half a bottle of lube guard. Anyway, I fill the pan with 4 quarts of fresh fluid via the dip stick tube. I then remove the transmission cooler hose that is returning the fluid to the transmission after passing through the cooler. I place that hose in a drain pan and start the car. This will pump fluid out of the cooler hose into the drain pan. After it drains about 2 quarts, I stop the engine and add 2 more quarts. Start the engine again and you should quickly see new fluid being pumped out. Reconnect the cooler line and check your fluid level. Add if necessary and remove some if necessary. The last 1/2 quart that I add, I mix lube guard in the oil bottle and pour it in together.
It is easy to do and I do it in about 10 minutes. First time there is a learning curve. If there is no drain plug, you can pump it out via transmission cooler lines.
Oilman:
When you’re putting new fluid in, how will you know when you’ve got the right amount in there?
Do you have the tools needed to check the fluid level, and at the temperature required?
They haven’t done long term tests. They do testing and take an educated guess what thet think the interval should be. Those estimates are based on the average buyer doesn’t keep their vehicle much past 100k miles. I guess it’s ok for them. But myself and others in this forum keep their vehicles a lot longer then that. My average is well north of 300k miles. Show me the testing Toyota did that shows the lifetime fluid will last 300k miles.
The new fluids like the WStranny fluid has only been around about a decade. I’d like to see the studies that prove that a tranny with WS fluid can go 300 k miles without changing.
Car mama ifs turners have switched marketing tactics in the past 10 years. It’s all about total cost ownership. By increasing the oil change intervals do tranny fluid interval cost ownership drops.
Toyota doesn’t perform long term tests? Perhaps they just aren’t sharing that information with you. Every manufacture has test vehicles in operation, I see them often on desert roads. However summer highway driving or daily trips to Death Valley are rather easy miles but much more harsh than those northern highway miles.
In the mid nineties when working at a Chrysler dealer the local cab company had a fleet of test mules with “sealed” transmissions. The dipstick tubes were marked and tagged “do not open, do not add any fluid”. Taxis operating nonstop in the city traffic environment with road surface temperature of 140F plus this was an ideal test environment. This was the research for Mopar ATF +4, similar to World Standard transmission fluid.
Those transmissions were removed and inspected after only 100,000 miles but I would expect that a company the size of Toyota could afford longer testing. World Standard transmission fluid has been in use in production vehicles for 13 years, Toyota has had plenty of time to change their position on “Lifetime” fluid.
Go back and read ALL the posts…not just pick one post and comment on it without understand what was being said.
As I stated earlier in this thread…any vehicle can reach 100k miles. That is not what I consider LONG term. And those long term 100k miles tests are NOT stop and go driving. Show me the tests for 300k miles. Even after 13 years - show me all the vehicles with over 300k miles and never had their tranny fluid changed.
They did. If you drive in harsh conditions and/or tow then they recommend changing every 100k miles. So I guess their long term testing they did BEFORE they said it was lifetime didn’t work out too well. Now that there are vehicles with over 100k real world miles Toyota has changed their position.
Have to report back now that I’m on the site again. I did get a longer rachet (torque wrench) which allowed me to open the 24mm bolt easily. I dropped the fluid from the trans pan and removed 2.5 qts of fluid. I closed up the bottom and put 2.5 qts of WS fluid back inside. This was done at 13K miles. I have 16+ now and am going to do it once more to remove more “old” fluid from the dilution drain/fill method. it wasn’t bad once I got the plug off the trans. For those out there that have the camry or Toyota, the 6mm hex bit that took off the drain plug also is used to remove the overflow tube from the trans pan/drain plug opening. It won’t go in too far so don’t worry about putting it back and thinking it will go into the pan. Now I know the fluid is changed and somewhat fresh. No issues with trans after 3k of driving with the change.
I change my oil at 2500-3000 miles and use synthetic 0w20. I change trans fluid at 7 to 9K intervals. I believe a poster here called transman said he changes the trans fluid ever 2x oil changes but that is from memory years ago that I think he wrote that on this site. it’s cheap protection. Heck the fluid coming out was a tad darker than what I put in new.
there is a video from some new mexico university or close by that has the machine and equipment to do the “perfect” change. A Toyota bulletin came out saying just put in what comes out (volume). When I opened the drain plug, about a qt came out (not supposed to as the overfill tube should have been there to drain it at the factory. I read that some video said 2.75 qts or so was what he put in for a change on a camry with the same trans. I put what came out so I’m “assuming” it’s not overfilled. I’m going to change it next week and will see how much comes out there. should be the same.
was the fill plug. I only had a 6" rachet. Now I have a 14" torque wrench. came off in a jiffy with it. It’s also hard since the car is up off the ground and you don’t have much room in the wheel well to manipulate a rachet.
