Tranny service, true or false.

BS. A lot of people on here have changed their tranny fluid around the 30,000 mile mark and after lab testing estimate the need to change again every 60,000 miles.

It is sealed in the respect that it is not vented to atmosphere but there is nothing magical about breaking the seal.

It is easy to change it yourself and there are many good threads on here showing how to. I changed mine at 25,000 and 50,000 and plan to do it again at 100,000.

 

There is no "seal", pure bs. I changed ours at the one year mark, am still debating to do subsequent change every 2 years or 3 years. Our "mileage" is around 14~15000 km per year.

It's easy for Toyota and their dealership network to deem the transaxle "sealed" for 120000 miles: they can wash their hands of responsibility at that time, the car's out of warranty, it's had it's "lifetime".

You need 4 liters (or qts) of Toyota ATF-WS transaxle fluid, and should replace the drain and fill plug washers (they're identical). The simplest tool for getting the new fluid in is a funnel with a 3' hose extension. A 10mm socket head socket is needed, for both plugs. Torque for both is 29 ft/lb.

 

Dealers will change the service recommendations based on whatever each service person thinks.
Some quote the book while others say what they believe is correct
As far as these 120K mile plans from the manufactures, I always ignore them. They're based on
reducing maintenance costs and the DOT's requirement to reduce the use of oils for environmental reasons.
IMO, the trans should be done at the first 10K and every 30K after that. I changed my oil at the first 1K
and have it scheduled for every 5K after

 

Even though Toyota calls for 10k? What's your thinking on this? Better safe than sorry?

 

Like I said in my post. Engine break-in is the reason for the 1K change. I refuse to run my oil more than 6 months or 5K

 

I did my oil on my new 07 Gen II the same as Diesel. At 1000 miles changed it to syn M1 5-30. Gets all the initial engine wear & manufacturing crap out of it. I would do the same if I owned a Gen III. Done that to all new cars I have ever owned.

Then it was 5K till lately where M1 seems to be going alot longer than it used to before getting dark.

Have 60K on the car now and have 5K on my last change and it still looks new and is not burning any oil.
So will run this change out to 10K and see how it looks when I send it out for its first engine oil UOA.
Only thing I don't like is the fuel dilution on the dipstick. Its pretty strong damnit.

I did the same to the trans. Changed that at 5,000 miles from new and it looked pretty dark. Then at every 30K afterwards. Its very very cheap. The cvt is hard on fluid.

 

Oil change is very profitable business because it doesn't involve any skilled labor. You could almost train a monkey to do this job. The profit margin has to be at least 200% if you're paying $60 for an oil change. I remember there was a time when synthetic oil would last 10k miles on a regular gas engine. If you are using synthetic oil on a Prius, you would think that it should last at least 15k miles since the ICE in the Prius runs a lot less. Also it runs at a lower temperature.

I had a Mazda 323 a long time ago and I changed oil every 7k miles and sometimes 10k miles and I was only using regular oil. My 323 had over 200k miles before I sold it to a mechanic who ended up fixing it. The engine ran like new until the day I couldn't start the car. Since I only paid $7k for the car, I didn't feel like putting more money into it. But the point is, the problem that I had wasn't related to oil change.

Don't let people/companies scare you into frequent oil change. Certain people stand to profit from your fear.

 

Yet, it is surprising how many of these NONKEYS do it wrong.

 

If the "Monkeys" did the job wrong, the only logical explanation is that the monkeys are dumb. It does not mean the job is difficult.

 

Total bs I changed mine at 60k cause I bought it certified used.... I though I was draining the oil it was so dark!!!! It smelled burnt also. Dont torture your prius.... Change it much sooner and I'd say every 30k miles.... Its very easy to do yourself. As easy as a oil change. Its just drain and refill. Get a cheap transfer pump. Makes the job 1000x easier and the pumps are like 15$. All in all I spent like 50$ and about 1 hour. Compared to the $220 the dealer wanted to charge to "flush" the trans. If you want to fill till the fluid comes out you'll need 5qts. I put in about 3.75 because in spilled some lol. It didn't come out the hole but I could feel it with my pinky right below the fill hole. 0-10mm below the fill hole I believe is the spec. Book calls for3.5qts. WWatch the video on here first before to try it though and make sure the car is level.

 

I asked my dealer service writer if I should do a service at 30K and she said every 50K is their unofficial recommendation for the transmission fluid.

 

Guys, "He said, She said",,,,,, If you had a gearbox full of gears and bearings and a lubricant with no filtering at all,,
"sealed" or whatever, Not even a magnetic drain plug to collect the ferrous gunk,,, wouldn't you want to change out the lubricant occasionally?

Look at some of the science based threads on this subject, like this one I started. Very long thread by now,, but just look at the oil analysis lab reports: ATF fluid changes ARE Required. | PriusChat

 

BMW tried the lifetime fill on my 05 R1200RT's final drive. It's similar to the differential
on a car, except not split with spyder gears. They had so many problems with this idea, they finally
conceded to it and added back a service interval. All the manufactures are trying to make their
product look better with less and less service requirements. It's all marketing crap and you will
pay the price in the end. The warranty will expire and you'll be left holding the bag when it fails
from lack of proper service. It's not designed to run for 150K miles no matter who tells you it is.
Don't be duped by B/S ideas you know are to good to be true. Take care of your car and it will return
the favor after the warranty ends. Be a cheapskate and you'll pay more than double in the end.
Not to mention, your car will be an unreliable POS Good upkeep is cheaper than paying for big repair
bills and being without your car for weeks. Not knowing if they'll fix it properly or just slap it together
and charge you up the Wazoo Cheap isn't cheap people. It's a costly experiment and your car is the
guinea pig

 

Dealer told me it's good until 90K miles. I knew it was BS. My prius got 33K miles now and I will soon do this myself and repeat every 30K miles. I want my prius to last a long time

 

I always do the first service early. After everything breaks-in and all the material enters the oiling
system, I do the first service based on the fluid capacity. The trans should be done in the first 5K
miles, IMO. The engine oil is always done @ 1K miles. After the initial services are done, you can
start to do it on a regular schedule. I never let my oil go over 7500 miles.

 

They all want to offer free service with new cars for x amount of time and make the cost of ownership look cheaper for x amount of years. Best way to make Thier numbers look better is to extend the service intervals. They have bean counters figure out the longest they can extend these service intervals and have the least amount of failures within the warranty period.....

After warranty is over they pretty much careless about the condition of the car cause the failure repairs no longer come out of Thier wallets....

Please recycle your used fluids!!!