Transmission Fluid Drain and Refill

[blumonster]

Hello,

I drained and refilled transmission fluid on our 2003 Sienna yesterday evening. The color of existing ATF was clear brownish. I used Redline D4 for refill.

I drive the van today and checked the level and condition of the fluid half an hour ago. It turned into light brownish again. And the level was a bit higher than hot max. notch.

Is it normal for the transmission fluid to lose its bright red color this fast?

I am thinking of draining it and refilling today for a second time.

The inside of the old plug was clear and shiny. I did not drop the pan,not comfortable doing it yet....

Haynes manual says 2003 model year Siennas do not have a differential drain, there is no need to fill differential separately. So I just drained through drain plug and refilled through the dipstick.

The driveway is not flat, the front of the vehicle was at a slightly higher elevation than the rear. That way I did not need to lift it, just reached the plug laying down on the ground.

[wiswind]

There is a drain for the differential on the 2003 Sienna.
I did not have the fill plug, however it is filled through the transmission.
In other words, they share the same fluid.
Draining the differential as well as the transmission pan gets some more fluid out during the drain process, but not a lot of fluid.
However, it is not manditory to drain the differential as it is sharing the fluid with the rest of the transmission....so when you freshen up the tranny fluid, you freshen up the differential fluid (speaking for front wheel drive, not all wheel drive, which has another differential for the rear to wheels).

THIS picture shows the location of the 2 drain plugs on my 2003 Sienna........I am under the vehicle (which is up on ramps) looking forward.


I would recommend doing as you are thinking of doing.......do another drain and fill.
Draining the pan gets, at BEST, 1/2 of the fluid......4 quarts.
The total system capacity is 8 quarts.
I also used Redline D4 fluid......but did a full system fluid exchange.

What you are doing will work......you just need to do 2 or (better) 3 fluid drain/fill.
There is some mixing of old with new fluid in the process, which is why 3 times is even better......with some driving in between each time.

The reason you only get about 1/2 of the fluid when you drain the pan is that the torque converter is still full of fluid.
Even removing the pan does not get much more fluid.
They do not put drain plugs in torque converters in most vehicles.....They stopped doing that some years ago.....

The advantage of dropping the pan is that you can do a visual inspection of the particles that the magnets have caught......it should be a fine silt.....chunks are bad.....and you can clean the magnets and pan.
The other advantage is that you can replace the filter, but the filter in the 2003 Sienna is just a nylon screen.....so not really much gain there.

THIS picture is what the old fluid looked like next to the Redline D4.
The old fluid had about 30K miles on it and I don't know what brand it was.


As a side note...you could use the same fluid, Redline D4 to change the power steering fluid.
I unclipped the power steering fluid resevoir from the inner fender and just dumped it into a shallow pan.
No need to unhook any hoses.
I refilled it with fresh ATF, ran the motor, turned the steering wheel back and forth and then repeated the drain and fill.
The owner's manual calls for the same Dexron III ATF fluid.
The OEM seemed to not have the red dye in it, which has caused some confusion.

[blumonster]

Thanks for the reply Wiswind.

I had not expected the color of the fluid to get brownish this fast, in less than 24 hours. I will do 2 or 3 more drain and refills in 10 days. Hoping to see the color stabilize at red.

Only thing preventing me from dropping the pan is not being able to seal it perfectly without a leak developing.

Is overfilling by half a quart to a quart is harmful? I measured the drained liquid with the help of a 2 quart plastic water jug and remember having 2 full jugs, but when it filled up only 3 empty ATF bottles.So I added half a quart or so more. When I checked the level hot, it was half an inch to an inch above the hot full mark if I checked it the correct way.

[Black Sunshine]

Don't be afraid of the pan gasket. It's really not that hard to put back on. I've changed mine about 6 or 8 times so far. Now I've gotten more aggressive and I change it every 10,000 miles. I don't do any sophisticated change though. I just drop the pan, swap the filter and refill it. As wiswind mentions this only changes about a gallon of fluid. I use the plain ATF from AutoZone. Coastal? I get the filter kit every time. I think that the filter kit seems to be a rip off. It's like $30 for a rubber gasket and a cheap looking filter. I should look for a cheaper alternative for this. It doesn't fit into my bottom of the line maintenance pricing. Mine never seems to darken up very much.

ATF isn't about clean-ness. It's about the ability to create friction or something. Fresh fluid does it and old fluid doesn't.

High temps, trailers, serious stop and go, all of these things can cook the fluid. Over heating the motor will almost always ruin the trans fluid.

[blumonster]

ATF is not about cleanliness but I read somewhere that they have detergents/dispersants just like oil does. There is (should be) no fuel dilution, coolant mixup, burn byproducts etc in a transmission so there should be no need for detergents like you said, but why do they add it, I wonder...

[Black Sunshine]

I guess it cleans as it goes and suspends the dirty stuff in the oil just like motor oil does.

[wiswind]

As the friction clutches wear, it creates a fine material in the fluid.
It is best if the fluid can keep this in suspension, and not deposit it.
The fine black/grey material that you find over things in there is from the friction material.....normal wear.
I added a Magnefine filter to the cooling line that comes back into the transmission from the cooler.
The Magnefine filters to a nominal particle size of around 30 microns, and will catch a lot more particles than a in-pan filter, even the ones that are a filter and not just a screen like we have.
Putting a in-pan filter that would catch such small particles would increase how often it would need to be changed......which increased the maintenance cost of the vehicle.
Changing the fluid on a regular basis as well as the additional filtration both decrease the amount of deposits that build up over time in the fluid valves in the transmission.
Keeping these valves clean keeps the transmission shifting as it should and reduces wear at these points.

[blumonster]

Originally Posted by wiswind

As the friction clutches wear, it creates a fine material in the fluid.
It is best if the fluid can keep this in suspension, and not deposit it.
The fine black/grey material that you find over things in there is from the friction material.....normal wear.
I added a Magnefine filter to the cooling line that comes back into the transmission from the cooler.
The Magnefine filters to a nominal particle size of around 30 microns, and will catch a lot more particles than a in-pan filter, even the ones that are a filter and not just a screen like we have.
Putting a in-pan filter that would catch such small particles would increase how often it would need to be changed......which increased the maintenance cost of the vehicle.
Changing the fluid on a regular basis as well as the additional filtration both decrease the amount of deposits that build up over time in the fluid valves in the transmission.
Keeping these valves clean keeps the transmission shifting as it should and reduces wear at these points.

I did the second drain&refill today and the fluid that I drained is starting to get me worried. As I said it is dark brown color, on the photo it looks like black. As far as I know there is not any shifting issues.

I am adding two photos I took today:



I hope it is normal and there is no problem with the transmission...

[Black Sunshine]

As WisWind said the blackness is the clutches wearing. They are wear parts. It's normal. Tons of metal in the fluid isn't normal although there is always enough metal in mine to cover the magnets really well.

[wiswind]

You can see in the pictures that I posted, the one with the new fluid on the left and the old fluid on the right.......
The old fluid was quite dark after only 30K miles.
Like yours, mine was shifting just fine.
Think of the majority of people who don't even think to EVER change their transmission fluid.

[chuck's sienna]

Change it one or two more times, it will clean up.

[txn999]

Originally Posted by blumonster

I did the second drain&refill today and the fluid that I drained is starting to get me worried. As I said it is dark brown color, on the photo it looks like black. As far as I know there is not any shifting issues.

I hope it is normal and there is no problem with the transmission...

One drain&refill will not clean up a lot of dirty, old ATF.
It takes at least 3 drain & refill to bring ATF to a sufficient level of freshness.

I estimated each drain remove 40% of old ATF.

1st drain removes 40% of old old ATF, leaving 60%.
2nd drain removes 40% of 60% (24%), leaving 36%.
3rd drain removes 40% of 36%(14%), leaving 22%. ATF is now fresh enough. Most people stop at this point.

4th drain removes 40% of 22% (9%). leaving 11% . Almost as good as new.

[Black Sunshine]

I couldn't bear to throw out that much ATF. I would drive 5,000 miles between those changes. Or just change it every 10,000 miles in the first place. The scary part is that it's always yucky at 10,000 miles.

[txn999]

Originally Posted by Black Sunshine

I couldn't bear to throw out that much ATF. I would drive 5,000 miles between those changes. Or just change it every 10,000 miles in the first place. The scary part is that it's always yucky at 10,000 miles.

In the case of ATF, Power steering oil, brakes fluid, antifreeze, it takes several drain and fill to restore freshness.
I hate to pour money down the proverbial drain, but it is what it is.

Toyota new world standard ATF change interval is 100K but I'd not wait that long.
The ATF gets pretty yucky after 10 K miles. That's why you want to remove it sooner rather than later. If you neglect the ATF and your transmission fails, you'll pay $4K or more.
So a 4 quarts of ATF every 15 to 20 K miles is a cheap insurance policy.

[blumonster]

I will do 1 or maybe 2 more drain and refills. I do not like the way drained fluid looks even after 2 drains. Redline D4 ATF is not cheap. I feel I am wasting it too but it is either several drains and refills or flush. I do not want to risk flushing at this mileage (160,000 miles). Because I do not see transmission service among the sellers' maintenance records. At this point I am assuming they had never replaced transmission fluid. I do not even know if the transmission is the original or not.