Transmission fluid change

Your not in my head. I’ve had heavy maintenance performed by my Toyota dealership many times with a good outcome. Besides if they jack it up then they will fix it.

 

I wouldn’t send my enemy to a Jiffy lube.

 

Another idea is to drain and weigh whatever you take out.

This eliminates any discrepancies from heat expansion of the fluid.

Fill with the same weight and you're

 

If a shop, be it dealer or independent, underfills trans fluid, how much wear happens before it is caught? At that point, they likely fill fluid properly, then send you on your way. Some damage is done, but probably not enough to justify rebuilding or replacing the transmission. You wind up with a shorter lifespan on it.

I would. My enemy can suck a fat tub of their crappy pennzoil.

While that sounds good, the fluid carries particulates after going through the transmission. This causes the fluid weight to be more. Granted, that's a small difference.

 

That's about what I paid last summer to have a drain and fill done on mine. When I called the dealer they said Toyota didn't have a specific interval, they say it's a lifetime. When I told him I rather change the fluid, they had no problem doing it.

 

As the Car Care Nut says, Do the overflow drain properly at the correct temperature like a professional. I use an iPhone and bought a Carista OBDII dongle ($30) to customize various 4R settings. Then I got the app “Car Scanner OBDII”, created a dashboard to directly read various parameters from the sensors such as battery voltage and coolant & transmission temps. This is how I pick the sweet spot for draining out the excess WS fluid. I run the engine until the pan temp is 107F, get out of the driver seat, crawl under the truck, and drain the excess via the overflow. Very easy.
Here’s the dashboard I set up on the app.

 

I have car scanner app! I never really figured out how to set it up to read AT temp on my highlander.

I just updated it an looked and saw they added some “connection profiles” but there isnt one for the 4runner. What did you do to get it to read AT temp?

 

I’ll fire mine up and check it out later today. Do you have a compatible OBDII interface plugged into the port and connected through Bluetooth or WiFi?

 

I had to experiment with several of the Toyota connection profiles. The one that worked best and captured and displayed all the sensor data I want is “Toyota 2016+ OBD-II / EOBD + AT”. I haven’t updated the app to the latest version so there may be more profiles that will also work.

 

when I looked last night, it was not connected to the dongle, but yes I do have a wireless/bluetooth obd dongle

 

To you or anyone else that knows… when using profiles that dont name your vehicle specifically, have those numbers been verified somewhere. I’d be paranoid about the possibility that the numbers actually belong to the description, and that the numbers are correctly comminicated to the app from the car.

 

Try it and get confident in how it reports.

 

will do. Id like to learn to use this effectively. I tried a couple of years back but got lost in the weeds lol.

would be nicer to check temp on the phone while under the car, compared to waiting for the D and then scurrying underneath.

 

Just received 6 quarts of Toyota WS fluid. Going to attempt the basic drain and fill on the GX

 

Let me know if I can help you with this. A lot of apps don’t really give you an instruction manual. You have to poke around and experiment to figure them out.

 

Thanjs! Once I get some time to poke around the app with some focus, Ill definitely hit you up!

 

That video shows Faye Hadley the goth technician from Motor Trend, All Girl's Garage, Motor Mythbusters, etc using the official Techstream diagnostic module connected to a laptop to monitor her trans temps and she compares doing that with just using an IR thermometer gun aimed at the pan which in her example from ~3" away showed a few degrees cooler than the actual monitored temp.

I did not see where she used an OBDII interface dongle and a cellphone app. That official Toyota techstream setup is not anywhere nears cheap.

Like you mention though it is possible to monitor trans temps using the ~$5 Torque Pro cell app and a ~$10 OBDII dongle. You will have to add a custom PID to get it to work. If you want to go this route Google is your friend: https://www.google.com/search?&q=toyota+4runner+Torque+Pro+PID+transmission+temp

All that said, the 'jumper wires and flashing dash light' method is an official check method explained in the Toyota Factory Service manual. It's safe and easy and as cheap as a paperclip or 3" piece of wire. I'd posted the page with the step-by-step a few posts back on this thread. (EDIT) Actually it was quite a bit more than just a few posts back and I'd buried with a lot of other info. Here's just the Toyota Factory Service Manual explaining the jumper method with the jumper stuff highlighted. Combine this official written form with Car Care Nuts tips in the OP video and it's easy peasy.

 

I was at the dealership today to pickup some 0w20 which they were out of. Just had bulk oil that their service center uses.

Anyway, the parts guy told me that they had been completely out of transmission WS oil and just got some in. So I guess customers were having to wait to get their transmissions serviced.

 

Just got delivered a case of 12 QTs of AISIN WS today. The OEM runs just a little bit cheaper than what Toyota wants for it after they rebadge it with their name. Now I'm just waiting on new gaskets that tracking says have been stuck at a post office for almost 2 weeks now and I think I've got everything lined up for a full tranny flush, diffs and transfer case changes.

 

Here is to help you learn from my mistake. I didn't plan ahead and order the new crush washers. Don't forget to order them for the drain and overfill plugs. I think it was on the first page, somebody called out the part numbers for them.

Crush washers too? I used to have a 2nd gen tacoma and did transmission, transfer case, and both diffs. Hope you've got a couple drain pans for everything. When I went after the transmission on my Tacoma (5 mt) it took a 10mm Allen for the drain plug. I broke one, bought a better quality one, then I had to put the front end on ramps because the cheater bar over the breaker bar was hitting the ground before breaking the drain plug loose. That was ridiculously tight. Different transmission though. Make sure you've got at least a 6 pack of beer (probably should have a 12 pk) to get through all the drains and fills.

 

Yeah gaskets = crush washers.

(x3) Front diff fill and rear diff fill and drain plug gaskets:

$15 12157-10010 Toyota Oil Drain Plug Crushable Steel Gaskets Set of 10 OEM 12157-10010

12157-10010
(x1) Front diff drain gasket:

$9 90430-24003 Front Differential Drain Plug Gasket

90430-24003
(x2) Transfer case drain and fill gaskets: 90430-A0003
(x2) Trans drain and overflow plug gaskets: 35178-30010
(x1) Trans fill plug o-ring: 90301-15004

FWIW I also picked up a Lexus 90341-24016 front diff drain plug to replace that Toyota 90341-24014 because it's the same except has a hex bolt head instead of the allen you and a gazillion others have struggled with. I have it, but still waiting on the gaskets listed above that are stuck for weeks now in KC's USPS hub. Already talking with the seller how much longer before we consider it 'lost' in the mail so I can refund or re-order.

 

That’s a great idea replacing the original plug with the hex.

 

When you say gaskets, my thought is the seal between pan and case, like on transmission. Didn't occur to me to think about between bolt head and pan. I think I need more coffee...

Just make sure to use a 12 point socket on it to properly round the head and make it impossible to take off...

 

Even though it wasnt on today’s To-Do list, I decided to get sidetracked by spending
a couple hours poking around with this app with the car on. I picked the same connection profile that you did (thanks!)

From a cold start (ambient temp is around 40deg) I was a bit surprised it took over 20 min for the AT pan temp to get to into the hundreds. Thought it would go faster. Most of the time it was in park or neutral. Sometimes i bumped into drive to check the thing was alive. On all the AT fluid change vids it seems to suggest it all happens really fast…but maybe they are talking about just the “target checking” range?

But it looks like it works. The same connection profile should also hopefully work on my 18 Highlander.

appreciate the help @ElectroBoy !

 

I’m glad it’s working for you.
My tranny temp takes about 10-15 minutes to reach target temp of about 110F, starting from 60F.

 

Is that in N or D ?

 

Mostly in N. But I did drive slowly around the block once to warm it up faster.

 

20 minutes is about how long mine took too. P and N while occasionally shifting through the gears. Cold start on a cool day.

 

Well, durn it, the connection profile didn’t work on my 18 highlander to read transmission temps.

@ElectroBoy or anyone else savvy with these things… Ive heard of PID formulas to unlock certain sensors on these OBD scanners. I tried searching but went crosseyed trying to understand what I need or how it works. Any of you know a good resource for figuring out how to access these sensors so they can be read? I dont want to derail the thread with non-4runner info, so please feel free to PM me with any ideas.

 

from the owners manual of the 1999 4Runner, for the transmission it says to use ATF D-11 or DEXRON III or DEXRON II. The transmission has a dipstick, but no fill pipe that i've found. It says the drain and refill capacity is 2L. so is this the method of measuring what comes out when the plug is removed and adding that amount of fresh fluid back? does someone know the total capacity of the transmission on the 4WD SR5?

as far as flushing, or replacing all the oil at once, I think if the 2L drain and refill were done like oil changes, then eventually the transmission oil is replaced. hope someone using DEXRON can weigh in. thanks! kind of like older old cars. keep adding oil and changing the filter occasionally, and the oil is getting cleaner. old school for people who remember that far back.