Prius C Transmission Fluid

Toyota doesn't offer a recommendation for replacing it, but several members have done so anyway.

What you should know:

• It's easy. Nothing special required. You drain out the old stuff and pour in the new stuff. No power flushing or anything like that needed. No filter. There are DIY write-ups findable on this site.
  
• A Prius is (by design) far more gentle on ATF than almost any other transmission. This is likely why Toyota doesn't require periodic replacement.
• You want to use Toyota's own ATF for this. Because the car uses it in somewhat different ways than a traditional automatic, it's not worth experimenting with generics. The real deal isn't expensive so there isn't much to save anyway.

Personally I'm planning to change the fluid in ours (at home, DIY) sometime after the standard warranty is out but before 100k miles. I haven't picked an interval yet, the car is still quite young...

 

You're overdue for a full brake inspection.

And yeah: transaxle fluid change is a good idea. It turns pretty dark in just the first year, then not so much, so early change is good, my 2 cents.

 

Professor John Kelly from Weber State found some documentation that the Toyota engineers recommended drain and fill every 100,000 miles. As this never made it into the service schedule, many PriusChat posters have invented their own schedules, using their best guesses.

My dealer has done the procedure for me for $90, $110, and then $90 again. so somewhere near $100 is a good price.

DIY is actually easy once you get the car level on jack stands. (be safe!) About $40 in parts, two gasket/washers, and 4 quarts of ATF WS at the dealer parts counter.

Oddly, the You tube video I found did not feature much English:

So here is a video about the Gen 3 prius for English advice

www.amazon.com/dp/B07GXB4Y8R
www.amazon.com/dp/B00CTUSEMU

 

Localization can be a liability for a global product like the Aqua/c.

 

I found one in Urdu, but it did not have as much detail, so I skipped including it.

 

I rather liked this particular write-up. A guy in Sri Lanka wrote it:

Review of the Toyota Aqua (Prius C)

The maintenance recommendations and a copy of the schedule is near the bottom.

 

Just to add-

There's something perhaps cultural I've seen in the way Toyota and other Japanese-brand maintenance manuals are interpreted.

I believe the intent of the maintenance recommendation is that sometimes the subject of the inspection will fail, and that it is always beyond the scope of the maintenance manual to give the pass/fail criteria. The manual is implying that if you aren't a pro judge of the item being inspected, you'll hire one. Somehow this gets lost along the way.

It doesn't help when so many dealer service bays just offer a "Transmission power flush renewal pak plus" for $229 regardless of whether the car needs a gallon of oil drained and refilled, or four gallons of exotic stuff with a pan drop, cartridge filter, new gaskets etc.

And then they tell you that you need it. Of course you need it. If you don't get it today the paint will fall off your house and your dog will run away.

Notice how fast they arrive at that without actually performing the inspection?

Perhaps the problem is that the manual assumes that there will be a trusting relationship between the owner and the maintenance professional?

 

How is that different than my paint running away, and my dog falling off my house?

 

Everybody gets to write their own country music song, right?

 

Bluesy

 

Given self driving cars, it is only a matter of time before the first song where the guy's truck, stuck in an abusive relationship, leaves him for some better man, with a bigger boat.

 

Or a better dog with a bigger boat. Or maybe the truck and the dog will run off together.

 

This guy also shows how to do the ATF WS. I followed him to learn how to do my own oil & filter as well as cabin filter and 2 part coolant system drain and refill. The ATF on my 2012 Prius C was replaced at 36k miles and 86k miles. The car now has 114k miles on it.
I don't think it really needs to have the ATF replaced but being the perfectionist that I am, I may do it anyway, DIY and save myself over $110 what a local transmission shop charges.

 

I can get Toyota equivalent ATF WS (stands for World Standard) on Rock Auto for about $6 a quart, and OEM Toyota ATF WS is about $12 a qt on amazon.
But Rock Auto charges about $15 to ship this much oil but I'd still save about $10.
Would you, or would you pay a bit more for OEM?
I hope I'm not hijacking this post.

 

I mean post is over 2 years old, excellent for reference or when owners search.

But hijacking? I think more like grave digging

 

If I needed it every week, I would feel a lot of pressure to try the substitute.

Since I only need it somewhere between every 100k miles and never, I'll splurge on the Toyota bottles.

 

I know, really. I guess I'm just itching to do some work on the car, but the fact is, it's very low maintenance and doesn't need anything done to it. I bought a pair of rear wiper blades for it. I still look at used cars online but can't bring myself to part with this car. It's likely the best car I've ever had. No car I could replace it with could hold a candle to it as far as reliability.