Maintenance timeline - front & rear diffs and transfer case

How many people are actually wearing out their differentials due to oil choice or age? They are going to break if installed incorrectly or a defect from the factory or from abuse like rock crawling or drag racing otherwise they are a pretty simple low maintenance mechanical device.

 

I let the customers bring their fluid for that. Normally OEM or Ravenol makes one that meets the spec. Before 2015 or so it was ok to use regular gear oil. Not sure when exactly Toyota specified a different fluid.

 

So I called to make an appointment and they're 6 weeks out. I'd rather have an oil change sooner and they had an opening for that in 2 weeks so I took it (I'm just over 30k right now so I should be just under 31k by then). The scheduler kind of freaked when I mentioned differential fluids as she said they were told that is a 100k service.

So, when I go for the oil change I'm going to have a conversation with the general manager (who I went to HS with long, long ago) about the discrepancy in recommendations. Meanwhile, I'm going to try to find a place to do the work myself sometime between now and 60k (which is what I feel should be an appropriate interval).

 

yikes, six weeks!. If you want your differential fluid changed, they should do the request regardless of what the recommended service interval is. Especially if you’re paying out-of-pocket.

 

I would agree that most differentials fail from, towing, off-roading, overlanding (all that extra wight), larger tires, etc…. I tow, overland, mild off roading and have larger tires, so I do change mine more often, and use Amsoil diff fluid. I don’t know if I would ever go 100K miles but I would probably follow the recommendations set forth by Toyota.

 

This. 99% of people will be fine using the lowest quality dino name brand gear oil that meets spec in manual, done at correct interval. That list of gear oil only applies to rock crawlers, extreme off roaders who beat the sh*t out of their 4Runners. As with most fluid-more often over more expensive is always better.

 

Brand doesn't matter follow manufacturers guidelines on servicing

 

Why do you want to pay to have perfectly good fluids thrown out? If the scheduler freaked out about it rather than just saying sure give us your money then it must really be crazy to change it that soon.

 

given how cheap ($) synthetic diff fluid is for 5 quarts, why not change ahead of Mfg recommendations? I change every 30k for peace of mind and TC every 50k

 

It’s a waste. Think about it. If it was even remotely necessary the dealer would be pushing it every chance they could to make more money.

 

To each his own. Cheers boys/girls, Im off for a week.

 

Do you guys change your engine oil every 2K just for peace of mind too?

 

nope, every 5k

 

Even that is half of what Toyota recommends.
I usually do it around 8 or 9K.

 

Many of the different manufacturers change intervals are due to "marketing". Some like to say ours are cheaper to maintain than BRAND X over X amount of miles, so buy ours. In reality, many parts are made by same vendor, whom builds for different manufacturers under their brand name. If you want your vehicle to last with the least failures.....DO THE MAINTENANCE. Back in the early days when I overhauled auto transmissions, I would say that a high number of failures that I saw was due to fluid not being maintained.

 

A far as oil changes when I had company car, if I went 5000 miles between changes the engine was real noisy. I changed it at 3000 and had NO NOISE. I change mine at 3000. My boss waited for maintenance monitor light to indicate oil change needed. We rotated our company cars out at 60K. His ended up needing camshafts at 50K. I never had any problems.

 

What kind of cars were they? Was it really an oil issue or a bad design? I’ve never had any engine issues in any vehicles I have owned changing the oil at 5K. My two highest mileage vehicles were an XJ Cherokee that had around 180K miles when I sold and still running fine and me correct Tacoma is almost at 190K and running fine. My 4Runner is at around 108K miles with 8-9K oil changes and no issues. This is the first vehicle I have done higher than 5K change intervals and have no reason not to continue. The oil isn’t excessively dirty and it doesn’t burn any.

 

Chevy Impala's. He went beyond 5k even. He waited for
Oil Life Monitor to indicate change needed. His died and mine did not. I used common sense monitor.

 

Is one full synthetic GL-5 really going to be much different than another with the same spec(weight and rating) i doubt it.
I notice redline gets alot of recommendations but most of their stuff is gl-4 rated. And anyone who swears amsoil is the absolute might be a bloody dealer. Imo

 

The Redline 75W-85 is GL-5 and perfect for the front and rear diffs
The Redline MT-LV is GL-4. However, it says it is a suitable replacement for Toyota/Lexus transfer case fluid "Genuine Gear Oil LF 75W“ 08885-81080. It should be noted that I have not been able to find out if the Toyota LF is a GL-4 or GL-5. However, since GL-5 is not safe for anything with brass syncros (not even sure if our TC's have any brass in them), a GL-4 may be a better choice for the TC.

Either way, this is what I am going with since I just had 5 qts. of Redline 75w-85 and 2 qts. of Redline MT-LV delivered yesterday.

Regarding the comments on changing it too early, I will be changing them at 25k miles in a couple of months. Years ago on my wife's 4th gen, I made the mistake of not changing her rear diff oil. At just over 100k miles, it lost a bearing in the diff. $2,400 later, I had a brand new rear chunk installed. Would rather spend $140 every 25k miles than do that again.

Only challenge with Redline is that the quart bottles are not a standard bottle thread that most screw on manual transfer pumps come in. I may end of transferring it into another bottle to pump into the diffs and TC. If someone knows of a pump that fits, I would love to know.

 

For what it’s worth

https://www.oildepot.ca/blog/can-75...t=Going to 75W-85 is,No fuel economy penalty.

 

Since our 4Runners come from the factory with 75w-85, I'm not expecting any change in fuel mileage. That being said, I'm pretty sure a 75w-90 would be just fine.

Honestly, I'm thrilled someone (Redline) is making a 75w-85. It has been challenging to find this in the past.

 

I use Redline MT-LV in my transfer case and pour it into a “clean” used Valvoline bag that my diff fluid came in. Now, I can “squeeze” the Redline MT-LV into the transfer case just like I “squeezed” the Valvoline into the diffs…. No pump required!

Cheers,
Bob

 

Used Ravenol in the T-Case on my Tacoma for the first time last weekend. Why can't other manufactures use the same bottle design? What a great feature to have a tube built into the cap.

 

im okay with redline since it has the proper recommended viscosity. I just wish they had the valvoline bag so no pumping would be needed

I’d have to try this!

 

Your user name implies Maine. Is that were you are located at? 442 dollars is very cheap for those 3 services. Here in nyc it's a total of 749 dollars at the stealer.

 

I bought a two pack of Pennzoil brand pumps off Amazon. Worked great even though they didn't screw on, they pressed onto the threads enough I had to pull them off.