Dealer fighting back on drain and fill transaxle

no, both are incorrect. you get most of the oil, and toyota usa calls it lifetime. find a dealer that doesn't want to 'save you money', should be easy, under a hundred bucks.

 

The Prius transaxle drains like a manual transmission, 90% plus of the fluid comes out when you pull the drain plug. I did a (DIY) drain at the one year mark (around 15,000 km), the three year mark (around 40,000 km) and will likely do one around the 6 year mark, around 11 months from now. It takes me a couple of hours with all the farting around, but for a dealership with a lift, 1/2 hour should do it.

There is NO service interval given by Toyota, so if he gives you any interval, he's just making it up as he goes. There is NO need for a flush, unless someone has put the wrong fluid in there. There are something like 3.9 liters total in there, about 3.5 will drain, and that's what you put back in. All you do is pour it in 'till it starts coming back out (with the car levelled). Very simple.

For DIY, the simplest way to get the fluid in is a funnel with hose extension. You should also have decent wrenches, a torque wrench, and a socket with a 10mm allen key (both drain and fill bolts have a 10 mm hex recess).

Prices, in Canadian dollars, from my latest change invoice:

(4) liters Toyota ATF-WS fluid: $9.32 (per)
(2) drain/fill bolt washers: $1.99 (per)

So in total around $40 plus tax for the supplies.

 

I think it is funny that they push back on changing the transaxle fluid, yet push injector cleaning to their customers!

I think the service manager is a bit confused about how your transmission is constructed. He would be correct if our cars had a torque converter. If it had the torque converter, a standard DIY procedure is to do a drain/refill multiple times. I do this on my Honda. Each subsequent drain/refill removes and dilutes the old stuff to a negligible amount.

As Mendel states the Prius is more like a manual in that it does not have a torque converter and only requires draining and replacing the fluid. It is just about as simple as changing the motor oil.

 

alot don't know how the cvt works so try to avoid going near it

Its a 10 min job - open plug, drain oil. replace oil, close plug

re the 13 quarts, that's BS. There isn;t anything in the Prius that takes that volume , except the petrol tank

 

So let me see if I got this. The service department doesn't want to take your money? Wow! Or maybe it didn't get to that, he was just trying to "go by the book". If you asked them to change it and they refused, then I'd be really surprised.
He was "making it up as he went along". RTFM. 3.9 L as I recall.

 

sure they want his money; $120.-..... ;-)

 

She doesn't know what she's talking about which is fine if she's not doing the work. I'd be more concerned if the tech doing the job told you that. If it was me i'd take it to an Indy mechanic and get it replaced by him using Toyota WS fluid, $100 or less

 

When you said "she", that pretty much explains everything....


iPhone ?

 

Similar experience here. They try to sell throttle body cleaning, injector cleaning, etc., but for some reason, they don't want to do the transaxle drain and fill.

 

Service MGR. Is mistaken. A little less than 4 qts. Total. You can get WS atf fluid at walmart and do it yourself for less than twenty dollars. Good luck!!!

 

NOTE: If DIY, remember to make sure you can remove the fill plug first before removing the drain plug, else you'll be up the proverbial creek.

 

Local dealer wanted 385$ for a trans-axle rebuild, wouldn't just change fluid, your should be avoided also.

 

Just make sure they flip the car over and give it a good shake to get the last few drops out.

I get being anal about getting it ALL out...especially when it's a rarely-serviced fluid. I make brake fluid changes easier (on my other vehicles) by siphoning off the old fluid from the reservoir at the master cylinder then filling with fresh fluid before I start. No point intermixing old with new at the source. This way, what's being pumped through the brake lines is 100% fresh fluid within the first couple of brake pedal pumps.

 

$120. isn't awful. your done, and can put it behind you for another 30k. all the best.

 

Lets be clear here, the Prius HSD is not like any other 'transmission'; it is a single speed manual with no clutch you can operate. There are very few moving parts, most of the 'transmission' is software that makes it appear to be a CVT.

It is not likely that any non Toyota class would cover it, and Toyota has no set service interval, so a Toyota class might not cover it.


Here is a good explanation, which does not cover servicing it, either. (Gen 1 and 2 are simpler than Gen 3, we do not know about Gen 4)