'96 Tacoma Maint

I’m at 211,000 miles and ready for another 60,000 mile maintenance. It’s a 2.7 4cyl, 4x4, reg. cab, auto trans. Is it better to replace trans fluid, Diff. fluid, power steering fluid or just leave it be. It runs great and nothing leaks or burns.

Read the maintenance schedule that came with your owner’s documentation. Do whatever the schedule says. Dealers make money (lots of it) selling you “maintenance” you don’t need. Follow the maintenance schedule that came with your Tacoma and you can’t go wrong.

The dealer’s schedule is not the TOYOTA schedule. Follow the Toyota schedule. The Toyota engineers wrote it, and they know what they’re doing. The dealer knows how to make a profit from owners who don’t read the maintenance schedule.

I agree with MC, but with a little adjustment.

Some current cars are used “sealed” auto transmissions. I may just be old, but I believe it is still a good idea to change the fluid. It is not as easy to do, but it can be done. I suggest maybe every 80 or 100 thousand.

As for draining or flushing, I suggest draining, as that will allow you to change the filter at the same time and it is usually (always?) what the manufacturer recommended. As for the old advice to not touch it, I believe this advice comes from those who have had their transmissions fail shortly after replacing the fluid. What they are forgetting is they replaced the fluid for the first time at 150,000 miles because the transmission was acting up. It was too late already. New fluid will not fix a transmission that was damaged because no one had replaced the fluid sooner.

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for the advice.