Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives Toyota - lifetime ATF?

Yeah my brother had his Silverado's pan dropped, filter replaced and backflushed by a local shop. 100 miles later it was in a transmission shop for a rebuild.

We have 193K+ on our 2012 Tundra. So far, the transmission behaves as it always has.

The bulk of our miles are highway miles, and probably 8-10 percent have been towing a double axle flat bed trailer loaded with whatever. We also do a lot of off-road driving, as there are lots of opportunities within a few miles of our place. My wife is an artist and spends a lot of time in the rough stuff in nearby mountains looking for scenes to paint and/or photograph.

After several conversations with the service manager of our nearest Toyota dealer, I will probably go ahead and have the transmission serviced when the odometer rolls past 200K.

I had Toyota do it at 100K, and sold it at 183K with no issues. It was a 2001 Tundra with 4.7 engine. I miss that truck.

I figured that changing the transmission fluid was just normal maintenance once a vehicle got some miles on it. We changed the fluid on the wife's GMC Acadia and a couple days later I was listening to one of those car service gurus on the radio about changing the atf and he said that if it isn't broken, it doesn't need fixing and to leave it alone. Then a guy or two phoned in and said that their transmission started to slip shortly after they had changed out the fluid and cleaned the screen. It has been 20k more miles on the GMC since the change and no issues so far, but we are pretty easy on our cars. I was kind of surprised when a car fix it guy talked about NOT doing a $ procedure.

Cheaper to change fluid then rebuild a transmission , especially on a front wheel vehicle like an Acadia

From another thread:

Spot-on.

I have almost 200,000 on my 07 Tacoma with the original ATF. I fully expect another 200,000 miles. It isn't miles, it is heat that kills ATF. I don't tow often and when I do it is less than 3000 lbs. For me changing the fluid every 30,000 miles MIGHT get me another year out of the the transmission. But at some point the transmission will go regardless. Unless someone tows or hauls heavy loads on a regular basis it is probably more cost effective to not change it.

I put 300,000 miles on my last Camry and never changed the fluid. It still shifted as well as it ever did when I traded it in.

In the end do whatever makes you feel good about it, I have only had one transmission go out in my life and I have always changed my fluid regularly, I have driven close to 2 million miles, most on slush boxes.

This is it on the newer Toyota trucks. Only other thing is that there is a thermostat that needs to be open to route fluid to the cooler. It is possible to jump this with a short wire to make it stay open during the servicing.

I had my 2011 tacoma replaced at 60k miles by RS offroad here in lakewood. I cant remember if they used Toyota WS or Amsoil. Either way, I felt, and they concurred, that there is no such thing as "lifetime" lubricant. I grew up in a house that took their lubricating fluids seriously; diff, trans, transfer, engine, coolant, etc. So i do it. Makes me feel good to change the trans, not sure if its needed or not.

You do NOT want to service the Toyota sealed transmissions unless you know what you are doing. And draining and haphazardly adding fluid in through the dipstick is a good way to jack up your Toyota transmission.

The Toyota transmissions are engineered to be virtually maintenance and repair free. And they pretty much are.

But if you are DYING to replace that fluid, this is the process for Gen4 and above Toyota AT's:

1) Make sure truck is level. Use the Toyota branded fluid. Drain, and replace with slightly more ATF fluid than you took out, through the dipstick (there is no fill plug)
2) Make SURE to use the required Toyota procedure. This consists of putting the truck in a "AT Temperature Check" mode. To do this, you use a piece of wire (or wires) to jump certain pins in your ODB2 port.
3) Then, there is a shift pattern you cycle through to put the truck into the diagnostic mode. With the engine running, you wait for the appropriate dash lights to signal that the ATF fluid is at the precise temperature.
4) While that light is on, you open the overflow valve, and let the ATF fluid drain until it stops dripping. Now the fluid is at the EXACT level.
5) Do not drain the excess while the light is off. If the light comes on and turns off because the fluid got TOO warm before you drained it all, STOP, let the truck cool, and repeat steps 2 thru 4.

You may want to Google or call Toyota for the specifics on the ODB2 jumps and shift pattern - I just don't remember. I know the above, because my buddy is a master Toyota tech, and I helped him change the ATF fluid on his 2008 Tundra @ 300,000 miles (for the first time). He was so unfamiliar with the process (because he almost never does it at the dealership shop) that he brought the printed out Toyota specs on the process.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/diy-full-flush-for-automatic-transmission.68462/

This is what I followed to do mine.

My 07 Tacoma is knocking on the 200,000 door. I did the "drain when cold and replace with same amount" method at 100,000 miles and I plan to do that again when I roll 200,000 miles. If I didn't plan to keep this vehicle for ever, I probably wouldn't even bother changing any fluids, well maybe the engine oil.

Why cold?

Toyota dealer near me absolutely does not like to do the transfusion, and they tried to talk me out of a drain and refill saying Toyota does not recommend it and that it lasts a life time But I insisted!

I have 276k miles on a 08 Land Cruiser... bought it new and still running the same ATF fluid in it...

Find another dealer and I am saying that nicely. Service writer at my dealer who I know very very well told me to drop the ATF on my TUndra at 60K. He volunteered that I didn't ask him. I will do the front and rear diffs and the xfer case at the same time.

DOn't change it now