Transmission Fluid Change?

Its hard to tell by looking at it. The pic on the left is virgin Redline D6 CVT fluid. Thats the brand I have been using for about 30,000 miles.

The pic in the center is OEM WS fluid with only 5,000 miles on it.
Looks pretty dirty doesn't it?

The pic on the right is Redline D6 with 25,000 miles on it.

 

I think so. It's been 2 years since I tried to get my hands under the car. Will look today.

 

I just finished the job to change the trans. oil. I ended up allowing the excess new oil to drain out through the fill plug as I put a little too much in my funnel right at the end. Wasted a few ounces of the precious WS. Is it necessary to drain 2-3mm below the fill plug, as I have read on here?

My 15/16" Craftsman socket was too tight on the fill plug, wouldn't go on all the way, so I used a 24mm. The fill plug wasn't as tight as the drain, no crack sound. Of course I put a 2' large cheater box wrench on my 1/2" ratchet handle to increase leverage, so not much was getting in the way of that setup.

I didn't remove any under covers, but did the top cover over the radiator part. I found the fill plug by feel, but there is a small square hole in the under cover which allowed a view of the fill plug. I tightened the fill plugs by feel, maybe I should use the torque wrench if need to adjust fluid level. I reused the washers as they are just solid aluminum, and I think that's OK for a few times.

Other observations are the new oil, Toyota brand WS, made in USA, is a distinct bright red with a touch of orange, with a slight odor, never quite seen an oil like that.

 

No.

 

It has been mentioned before in a number of posts, but it is important to call around for prices for a transmission fluid change. I live in the Dallas Fort Worth region, and called seven different dealers to get a range of price quotes. The lowest price was $83, the highest $299. Guess which price I went with?

 

We did our tranaxle fluid change this weekend, at the 62K mile mark. The info posted here was very helpful, and with my wife helping, this was not a difficult task to do. We put 3.8 qts of Toyota WS ATF fluid back in. Here are the details I recall about it:

1. TOOLS: You MUST have a fluid drain pan or short bucket, 10 mm hex wrench (for drain plug), a 24 mm 3/8" socket or similar (for fill plug), and a funnel with a 3 ft. clear tube.

You will probably need something to use as a breaker bar, such as a 2 ft piece of 3/4" hard copper pipe or 3/4" EMT conduit. You can slip this over the 10 mm hex wrench or to your regular socket wrench handle, for extra leverage/torque, as these fill/drain plugs were installed at the factory and do NOT come out easily the first time.

2. You will likely have to remove the plastic shroud/cover over the radiator, so that you can work the funnel and hose in there and get some light in there. There are six snaps that come out, but the shroud is easy to remove/reinstall.


3. When you drain the fluid out, there is a whooshing sound as the vacuum escapes. The original fluid was placed in at the factory under vacuum pressure, is my guess, to reduce oxidation. Once unsealed, this is no longer the case, but not a big deal IMHO.

4. Even though our 07 Prius has been "babied" by my wife since we bought it new, we noticed telltale signs of tranny fluid oxidation. The fluid was no longer red, but dark purple, with a tiny amount of the graphite-like filings on the magnet that another owner reported. Not a big amount, just a teeny bit, which is normal.

What is not normal, as more astute posters have pointed out in a much better and more detailed way on this forum and others, is that the fluid IS OXIDIZED at 60K miles and therefore NEEDS to be changed.

I was so surprised to see this that I called my local Central FL dealership and alerted them to this issue, as if OUR tranny fluid NEEDED to be changed at 60K miles, then EVERYONE'S tranny fluid in Florida needs to be changed at 60K miles (heat and humidity are more prevalent here which may account for the problem with the fluid, or it may be that Toyota is not thinking this one thru clearly and ALL Prius tranny fluid should be replaced at 60K miles).

He did advise me that at this time, Toyota does NOT have any requirement to change the tranny fluid until the 100K mark, but said he would look into it. It would be easy for them to accumulate their own data, or check into the online data compiled by others. He would be happy, he said, to offer this as an add-on service to his Prius customers, if they want it - they just don't do so at present unless the customer requests it, so I have them thinking about it now.

5. You know when you hit the 3.8 qt. "full" mark as the fluid will start dripping out of the fill hole into the face of whomever is on the bottom-side of the car. You cannot overfill the tranny, because there is not any extra space there, IMHO.

6. The whole job took about 2 hours, but we were slow and careful and worked on other 60K mile tasks. It takes a while for the fluid to flow into the transaxle, unless you have a pump to pump it in under pressure, so expect it to take a few minutes to do.

All in all, this was not a hard task for anyone who changes their own oil and we are SUPER GLAD that we tackled this. Total cost with new tools (hex wrench/socket) and funnel was like $75.

 

Yes Florida heat stop & go is really hard on trans fluid. Its very important you keep up with the inverter coolant also as thats the trans cooler too.
It may look ok in the reservoir but trust me your way overdue for that also. But changing that is really easy to. Its a breeze.
Pat Wong has a good write up on it somewhere.
Plus you'll get an instant boost in mileage too with fresh Inverter Coolant.

Alot of us who plan on keeping our cars a long time send out our trans fluid for wear analysis. There's alot of fluid wear discussion with wear reports on this forum up top in the sticky's.

To bad you did not save a sample, your fluid sounded bad.
I would change the fluid again at 70,000 miles. Its very inexpensive if you do it yourself.

I used this company and they charged $25 and they did a good job.
I use aftermarket fluid also which reported very good wear numbers.

WearCheck - Condition Monitoring through Oil Analysis

 

I changed out the trans fluid on our '09 Prius a few days ago. Car has 56K miles on it. The fill plug came off easily; obviously my dealership has checked it at previous service stops. The drain plug was very tight & took some effort to break loose. The old fluid was obviously in bad shape. I've noticed that the car seems to run better & quieter with the new trans fluid.
Thanks, PriusChat members, for all the good advice. Much appreciated.

 

Yes my car ran quieter with my brand of fluid also.

 

I just bought my 05 Prius with 87K miles and the previous owner I believe has not done the transmission oil change so I would like to do this. I called the Toyota dealership in Fairfax and they said they won’t do that on my Prius as it is not required. Wal-Mart also won’t do it, so any other place I can take my car to get this service done in VA/DC/MD?

 

My dealer also claimed that Toyota "World Standard" transmission fluid never needs to be changed. I still asked that it be done because of special conditions and they said they would have to work up an estimate. If I can't get this dealer to do it, I'll just keep calling others until I find one who will. I have 80,000 miles and my 2006 Prius just survived a harrowing experience of gasoline-only operation after the HV battery failed during which the gas engine seemed to be revving wildly. I figured that couldn't be good for the transaxle fluid, then was surprised to discover it hadn't been changed at 60,000 miles, and then even more surprised that many pro-active owners are changing theirs at 50,000 mile intervals, and then shocked by the "never needs changing" claim which must be rank planned obsolescence. My plan is to keep the car to 10 years and 155,000 miles at least. it's a great car, and would be terrible to let it run down for lack of inexpensive maintenance.

 

I asked the nearest dealer to do it at 60,000. They told me it was not required but that it was my money. So if you drive to Kirk Toyota in Grenada MS and be firm, you can have it done for $109.

 

That's silly. It takes 10 minutes from start to finish. Less time than changing the engine oil.

http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...g/92790-transaxle-oil-change.html#post1307949

 

When I changed mine at 60K, it came out black and pretty much like water. It had lost what little viscosity it originally had. Most dealers probably haven't change it so they don't want to do it because they don't know how, but even the dealer service manual specs going in through the front level check cap rather than the top cap which you have to remove the inverter for. The only reason you'd have to remove the inverter, which takes a long time is if you don't have a pump to push the fluid in from the side.

 

When I actually came down for my 80,000 mile service, my dealer, Alamo Toyota of San Antonio Texas had not prepared an estimate for changing the transaxle fluid as they had promised over the phone, they simply refused to do it as a preventative maintenance measure. They continued to claim that Toyota World Standard fluid NEVER needs to be changed. Not just after 100,000 miles, NEVER. I said I knew it wasn't supposed to need changing, but I wanted them to do it anyway, because I was concerned about the wear that occurred when my car was running on gas power only, and I wanted to make sure it lasts a long time. They still refused. They claimed they could change the fluid in the course of certain kinds of repair, such as if it all leaked out, so we capable of doing it,* but would not do so otherwise. The fact that they mentioned they were capable of doing it made me wonder if they actually weren't, and might have to call in some specialist from elsewhere if it actually needed doing.

So since the car is still under platinum extended warranty, I'll see if I can find another dealer to change it.

 

It is amazing that dealers do not push this, and sheer stupidity that they refuse to do it. I wonder if the service advisor couldn't find any pricing information in the computer and so decided to punt. Any Prius trans with over 60K miles on the factory fill will have very dark colored fluid. It is perhaps the easiest add-on service to justify to a skeptical customer. The recent news from Luscious Garage suggests that 200,000 miles is Toyota's expected average lifetime of the trans on the original fluid. But instead, the upsell focuses on pointless fuel injector cleaning.

 

Just to be clear, they see some taxis at that mileage having transaxle problems. I suspect they don't have the statistics to say the majority of the cars at that mileage all have transaxle problems.

Luscious Garage | Blog | Gen 2 Prius (2004-2009) Transmission Failure, P0AA6, P0A92, P0A7A

Of course since the fluid change is easy and not too expensive to do we should all do it just in case.

 

What we really need is the failure rate conditional on at least one fluid change, and the failure rate conditional on regular fluid changes. We have not yet had anyone post here (Gen II) with a complaint of, "My trans failed at xxx,xxx miles, in spite of having changing fluid every xx,xxx miles."

 

Yup, I just had my done today at 15k by Luscious Garage. They charged me $98 for the service. $60 for labor (1/2 hr), $32 for the fluid, $2 for washers and the rest was taxes and disposal fees. The car accelerates much smoother (like day 1 again) and the transitions feel less abrupt. I would highly recommend doing this service every 15k.