Transmission maintenance

There's no reminder from the car, most people here would recommend doing it every 60k miles

 

Agreed just hit 60k miles on my car and will be doing the first transmission service very soon. Through my research if your car has over 30k miles and has never had the fluid replaced get on it. For a DIY'er it cost around $40. Simply substitute a drain/fill instead of going out to dinner one night, your bank account will appreciate it in the end.

 

I would do a first transaxle fluid change asap, say at the one year mark, anything over 10,000 miles. Then go to a longer interval. Use Toyota ATF-WS.

 

lifetime fluid.

 

Hoping that's sarcasm if not it's bad advice.

 

Same sarcasm you will get with that Magic DOT 3 Prius lifetime brake fluid.

 

It's inline with Toyota's stance on the subject. Which I think is the main reason there's so much pushback and confusion at dealership's service departments. But with the cost of the fluid, and the ease of the service, why not?

 

actual toyota recommendation. bad advice? maybe, but everyone has an opinion. show me a conclusive study, and i'll agree that toyota is wrong. like to do unneeded maintenance to be on the safe side? i have no problem with that.

 

I tend to agree. There are tons of threads about changing it from 10,000 to 183,000 but I have yet to see one about a transmission failing because it wasn't changed. I see some about the color being bad and a chemical analysis but where's the proof about any that have been damaged. You know that there are many that are never changed. Show me the proof.

 

I tend to disagree, lol. I don't need conclusive proof, it being such an easy chore.

 

Unneeded maintenance on small aircraft has been linked to an increase in likelihood of subsequent failures, according to some safety analysts. For example, overhauling piston engines at TBO surprisingly can induce failure due to incorrect overhaul procedures that exceeds the danger in carefully running them past TBO.
Despite knowing this, I changed the PSD fluid on our 2012 hatchback at 47,000 miles as the reports of User Oil Analyses provided by PC members convinced me of the long term wear problems. IMHO the potential problems in the PSD would tend to show up in the 200,000-300,000 range, which has not been reached by large numbers of Gen 3 owners yet.

 

well there's your answer. not enough 2-300,000 mile gen III's after only 6 years, to give us conclusive tranny failure rates. just because gen II held up without oil changes, doesn't mean gen III will.

 

The Gen II's were "supposed" to get 5,000 mile oil changes and they did not hold up as evidenced buy all the "Why is my Prius burning oil" threads...and to clarify...there is a difference between maintaining and fixing. No one cares whether someone else runs your vehicle ragged or obsessively maintains it...it's your car and you money. But to suggest that the Prius should never have it's fluids changed because Toyota does not mention it and justify this with no history of "failures" is just plain wrong.

 

Well, I caved to the pressure and called my dealer for an appt. to have mine changed. It's only $75 so that's cheaper than some have said. He said that's for a transmission service. I said that's changing the fluid isn't it. He said it's just draining the 4 quarts in the pan and replacing it. I guess he thought I might think it was a flush but I don't think anyone does that to these transmissions. The Honda I had they recommended draining and replacing 3 times to really flush it out. Anyway I guess it is cheap insurance. It has 83,000 and I plan to wait about 50,000 more before I do it again.

 

Anecdotes are not proof.
Transaxle Failure | PriusChat
Is it better to rebuild a Transmission or replace it? | PriusChat
Gen 2 Prius (2004-2009) Transmission Failure, P0AA6, P0A92, P0A7A - Luscious Garage | Hybrid Specialists
Transaxle failure | PriusChat
Transaxle Failure: no ICE, no codes, no go. | PriusChat
Replacing Our Second First Generation Prius Transaxle

No amount of links represent proof, but it is not unheard of. How many of these folks had ever changed their ATF? We do not know.

 

At a "transmission" fluid change there are two basic things you need to do.

1. Completely drain out the old fluid.
2. Clean/replace any "filter" that catches impurities before adding new fluid.

How hard or expensive these items are do to depends on how accessible the items are.

"Flush" is really a bad term because you only "flush" out impurities in certain systems.

You "flush" a brake system to ensure all old fluid and air is out of the lines. You flush a coolant system to ensure all the old coolant (and system cleaner) is purged before adding new coolant.

You really don't need to do this with oil and transmission fluids.

 

I read all of these. One was a verified factory defect and one had fairly regular fluid changes. They were all Gen 1 and 2 but I'm sure there are some Gen 3's. You are not likely to ever find any major system in a vehicle that has never failed a few times. But I have to admit it's not a bad idea to change the fluid which is why I've made an apt to do so. And life goes on.

 

Considering the transmission and engine are drain and fills your "mostly" correct...but service is still required. On "normal A/Ts you can and should flush in addition to pulling the pan to clean out the fuzz. Years ago there was a drain on the torque converter with rear wheel drive cars but those days are long past.

 

"They" was maybe just the dealership service department?

The Honda Owners Manual say "replace transmission fluid". Here's a snap from my (paper) 06 Civic Shop Manual. It's a single simple drain and fill. This only replaces about 50%, but Honda I'm sure is cognisant of this, sets the change interval accordingly. The only time you need to do multiple drain and fill (a flush) would be if there was the wrong fluid added, contamination.