Transmission fluid

i guess it's worth a look, not a good idea to be driving with less than full. should only take a few minutes, why didn't they do it before giving it back to you?

 

Whats not common is to NOT check the trans fluid before giving the car back to you. That's looney tunes. You could be driving around with really low fluid. News trans are expensive. Its impossible to measure how much is lost but some is lost as you are opening up the differential section of the trans.
So...to check that all you have to do is open the fill bolt on the side of the transaxle and stick your finger in that fill hole and see if the fluid is at the top of the hole. if not you pour in fluid till it runs out of the fill hole. In fact not changing the trans fluid after replacing inner shafts is just bad business. The inner shafts are being replaced because there worn. When they are worn they wobble. When they wobble they tend to wobble around where the shaft splines meet the differential hypoid gear. Depending on how worn they are it could be major wear there and unless you change the fluid that wear medium (metal) is still in the fluid. Plus when you open the fluid dump bolt its got a magnetized end and captures all the wear medium alerting you to wear issues. So if you change the fluid and the dump bolt has alot of big pieces of metal on the magnet end you are then aware that I may have major issues soon down the road. A good thing to know. That and changing the trans fluid is a real good maintenance thing anyway especially for you because I'm guessing you have 200K plus miles on the car. I change mine about every 30K but now at 100K miles every 50K. Its cheap...its easy..and a real good bang for your piece of mind buck.

So yeah you need to find a better garage.

 

" . . . No garage here says they regularly change the trans fluid . . . "

I've heard that from several mechanics. One said they recommend it only if there's been heavy duty use, like a taxi.

 

toyota doesn't recommend changing the fluid as preventative maintenance, so the dealers play along. ed's talking about your specific situation of changing the half shafts, although many here recommend changing the fluid regularly.

 

I don't trust anyone to change the fluid "regularly." Especially the %#^+!! dealer service depts! So my original trans fluid will still be in there until the cows come home....