Quote:
Originally Posted by bigkat91
Today I got around to changing the oil and filter and also draining the tranny and getting 3.5qts of fluid out of it. It was a red brown color and the car has only 36,000 miles on it. I think the toyota manual is total bs about not having to ever change your fluid. I plan on doing a drain and refill every oil change and drop the pan at 60,000mile to clean the filter screen and clean up the pan, is this overkill?  |
Woah...you're going to drain and refill the ATF at EVERY oil change? Is it overkill? WAY overkill. Regardless of what the fluid LOOKS like, you can't know the lubrication properties of that fluid unless you send it off and have it analyzed. In other words, with only 36,000 miles on the fluid, regardless of what it looks like, it's likely just fine. I have a '97 Cadillac with almost 170k miles on the original fluid and original transmission. The fluid's not blood red anymore, no, but still works 100%. The owner's manual indicated that unless I used the vehicle for towing or taxi duty, that the fluid didn't have to be changed. So far, the owner's manual has been right on. I've seen no reason not to believe Toyota in this case either.
It's certainly not going to hurt anything to change it more often than Toyota recommends. But to answer your question, about whether changing the ATF at every oil change is overkill...yes it is. Even doing it every 30,000 miles would be overkill. Most folks recommend changing it every 50k, if they're not of the school that modern ATFs really can go a long way. Remember, there are no contaminants in an automatic transmission (like there are in an engine). There's no air intake to ingest dirty air. There's no fuel blow-by to thin the fluid. It's really in a MUCH different environment from the engine oil. Which is why essentially every modern automatic transmission using modern ATF recommends no changes unless it was used under severe conditions.
