Temp for transaxle oil for draining??

I am about to drain the transaxle oil out of my 2002 Prius with 72K. Do I need to get ATF oil up to running temp or drive around the block before draining, or just do it cold? I'm changing over to World Standard ATF.

This may be the first time this has been changed, keep you posted when i drain and drop the pan. What is the torque for the pan bolts when I tighten them back up?

Thanks in advance,

Joe

Decided to let gravity to it's thing and drained it cold.

I unbolted transaxle pan and found magnet in bottom of oil pan, it had a sludge build up around magnet about the size of half a golf ball. I found there was some grit in the sludge, but not too much. I did find one little piece of metal about half the size of a BB, that was more flat than round.

I have cleaned pan and now going to put cleaned magnet back in back of pan, bolt it all up and fill it up with ATF WS, with new gasket. I used a 24 mm socket to take the fill and the drain plug out.

Joe

Welcome to the club!

Can you describe the oil a little better? Did it smell OK?

I changed mine at 52k miles and it was pretty ugly.

Bob Wilson

Bob,
The oil was pretty red, not dark, only thing dark was the small amount of sludge/slime around the magnet. The sludge was like a paste, I just spread it out, felt the tiny grit in it and found the little piece of metal. I'm a newbie, and surely not a expert, but would think that according to my findings at 70k, I may be in good shape with transaxle at this point. My since of smell is not that great, but would say it just had the smell of old oil.

Bob when you say ugly did it not have the red color, and did you have any metal pieces on the magnet?

It was most of the afternoon for me to do this job, finding the right sockets, funnel, dropping the pan,and the right size hose to fit in the filler opening. I'm glad I did it, saved some money and will do it again when the time comes.

Joe

Nice work, Joe. Since the oil is so thin and you are cleaning the pan anyway, no need to have the oil warm when draining it. As I recall, the pan bolt torque is around 5-6 ft-lb.

Mine was opaque and nearly ink black. It also smelled of paraffin. I bought the car from a dealer in Ft. Worth TX and subsequent oil testing has shown a tendency for oil from agricultural or dusty areas to be in relatively worse shape compared to oil from more urban settings.

It sounds like you could see through your oil and that was impossible with mine.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson