Changing Transaxle oil

you crawled under with just the spare tire weenie jack? Not sure I would feel very safe under that little thing, especially when you start to use a wrench, which could put some sway into the body.

When I use the ramps, it seems fairly parallel

 

H

I built a vehicle ramp out of old railway ties that allows me to get a vehicle about 3 ft into the air, but perfectly level. It's probably sturdy enough for a 2 ton truck

I'll never make anything out of old railway ties every again. They're too damn heavy and hard to work with. Next ramp, I'll weld something together

 

I went to the the dealer this morning. They gave me some run around about doing the service. He went back to talk with a mechanic, and came back claiming it would be 1-2 hour labor because they need special pumping machine, the transmission must be at certain temps, something also about electrical winding in the trans that also made the job hard. Lastly, he told me the fill was almost 6 quarts(wrong). I almost went and got the car manual out of the glove box, but didn't no sense in getting in a pissing match. To top it off, they wanted 180 dollars to do the job..I declined. There is another dealer, but a ways off..and I'm sure they will just give me the same story.

This is the first time I've not been happy with Desert Toyota, but I can't blame the service writer..he just was told what he was told by whatever mechanic he spoke with.

So anyway its my day off and I want to get this done. To be certain I took some pics of the belly of the car just to make sure I have the right drain/fill hole

Drain



fill?

 

Keep us posted! I am coming up on my 3K oil change and will switch to full synthetic at this point. Probably 0W30. However I am like the rest of you in we need to change our tranny fluid every year. $180 would be ok for a full trans change but a little steep for a drain and fill.

 

nm. I got the fill nut loose. But now the Drain won't budge, and yes Im going the correct direction...All I have is a 10mm semi long allen wrench, it's not a short one..but not quite long enough for leverage..either that or it's seized.

Im going to have to get a Allen hex key socket for my socket wrench I guess. ugh

 

Tightening torque is 29 ft.-lb. If your wrench is 4" long then you'll have to apply ~90 lb of force on the end of the wrench, which is pretty unlikely unless you put a pipe extension over the wrench. The 10 mm hex key socket is the correct tool for this purpose.

 

The wrench is 6", wow thanks for that info though=) I'm just a gorilla out there trying to do this, I gave up earlier today. I went over to autozone and found a 3/8 ratchet 10mm socket key for my socket wrench. Perhaps tomorrow evening I will break out the lamp and do it in the dark.

no wonder though, 70-90 lb of force is to much for my wimpy arms, especially at the awkard position under the car, hard to get leverage.

at least the 4 feet of nylon tubing I have fit's perfectly in the fill hole.

will have pics up soon of the fluid and magnet. I suspect it will mostly be pink , low miles.

 

Yeah you really need the proper 3/8 socket and a good ratchet. I'll confess the first time I tried taking the cvt drain plug off my Prius, I needed a 2 ft pipe on the ratchet

 

I'm doing mine tomorrow, this is the reason I'm using my new air setup
One question, just to make sure though, is it reverse thread by any chance?
Don't want to be using the air only to find out I'm going the wrong way.
Thanks

 

No. Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty

 

Alright got it done today. Wasn't so bad, about 40 mins,used a metal pipe on my ratchet to pop the drain off, smooth sailing after that.

MAN was the fluid DARK. The magnet has a ton metal shavings, and was a thick graphite like paste when on the skin.

Here are some pics of the fluid and drain plug.





overall quite an easy job once everything was figured out. I drained it while the engine was a bit hot, after a short drive. And filled an hour later when it cooled, and had completely drained. Hopefully I will see 1-2mpg gain by doing this, not holding my breathe. But trans feels a bit better now, probably just placebo effect.

the car only has about 23,000 miles.

 

You used Toyota WS fluid? I am thinking about doing this if my wife goes to see her folks. LOL

 

yes ATF WS from the dealer. When I went to pick it up, the dude tried to talk me out of it saying i was wasting fluid. Anyway it's about 6-7.50$ a qt.

man I'm telling you it was very black, and nasty what came out of the transmission. Maybe it's designed to get that way for better operation? I have no idea..but you would think it wouldnt be so nasty looking after so few miles when it's supposed to be a synthetic LIFETIME fluid.

 

I find it odd that I can buy a 4 litre tin of Toyota WS up here for around $22

All depends on how long you define "lifetime," such as duration of warranty only. Eg, motor oil can be considered a "lifetime" fluid

 

ATF WS used to cost $5.20 a US quart here. However the price recently was increased to almost $8.

 

Well, could be worse. Toyota changed the spec for the rear axle gear lube for the FJ Cruiser about a year ago. They used to spec a straight SAE 90, which is fine for Australia, not for a climate that gets colder than 0 F

So they went to a synthetic 75W-85. Some reports have dealerships charging $85-$130 a QUART for that s***

I bought an entire 20 litre pail of Mobil Delvac Synthetic 75W-90 for $128.

It's one thing paying $10 a litre for WS, when you're changing about 4 litres, and not that often. But paying +$80 a litre for gear lube ... yeah, right. I guess in these severe recession times, if a company can't make money selling cars, they can make money in the service bays

 

You folks pretty much have convinced this mechanically challenged person that he can change his own transaxle fluid. I've got close to 58K miles on the car now. Sometime in the next few weeks I'll do the change and collect a sample for testing. I've been gathering up supplies: 10mm hex socket, funnel with 3' of tubing, and washers. ATF ($7.78/quart -- the cheapest in town) will come next week; the dealer had only two quarts in stock today.

I'll be using ramps. My fiancee's yard has a downhill that I use for oil changes that brings the car pretty much level when it's on the ramps.

As for the washers, I got two of part #90430-18008. Can Patrick or someone else verify that that's the right number? The parts guy had an exploded drawing of transaxle parts on his computer that he used to get the number. He showed that to me, but I didn't have my reading glasses so I can't be sure that he had the right part.

As an interesting aside, he said he had moved about two of these washers in the last year. Apparently yet another dealer that doesn't see the benefit of changing the Prius transaxle fluid.

 

That's the correct part number.

 

Is this a must for a 8K change?

 

Just picked up 4 quarts of WS and it was 7.80 something. It did not say synthetic on the bottle so I assume you guys have some inside info on this. Also Honda makes a real CVT synthetic fluid just for hybrids with a CVT tranny. Since I have a case on hand at all times//I wonder??????? That stuff is expensive, like $14 a quart but I got it for $8 by the case.