I have been waiting for quite some time to have some valuable information to add to this forum. Well tonight I got my opportunity!! Complete success story.

My transmission has taken about 6 seconds to shift into reverse ever since i purchased my truck a year ago. Before this winter I drained the pan and added the correct amount of Max Life Valvoline ATF to fill her up. Truck ran great even across the state of Michigan for a couple road trips. I always noticed a little studder around 70mph with cruise control engaged going up hills and such but never anything more.

Fast forward through a Michigan winter, and yes this 250k mile truck has been my daily driver ever since I paid only $2,200 for it last year. In the cold temps my truck wouldnt engage into reverse or drive untill it idled for at least a half hour. It also started to slip and stutter very significantly under load in first gear and then eventually in all gears under minimal throttle.

Now that we have received some warmer temps in the state I've decided to check the fluid as I was scared to even do so before. To confirm my worst fears it smelled burnt and it was pitch black. F*** I thought to myself. Here we go.

It wasnt a huge issue because I have a low mileage unit waiting to be swapped in that I had only purchased for $300 locally off of the book. So I did some research. A couple posts on here and a Lexus forum regarding the A340 family transmissions and boom. I thought it was worth a shot to drain the pan, drop the pan and at least inspect the filter as I have an OEM filter I had purchased for my new unit laying around in the basement.

I drain the fluid and it looked like the attached picture of black fluid in a bucket. I also noticed that there was a rubber gasket which wasnt OEM obviously because it wasnt Toyota FIPG.

So what do I do? I proceed anyways.

The magnets were filled with goop more so than the other unit I purchased and more so than any other documented magnets I had ever seen on this forum or any YouTube footage.

I cleaned the pan and the magnets, installed the new filter and reinstalled the pan, this time with JB Weld high temp RTV as I didnt want to risk using the good stuff (the Toyota fipg I have) if it didnt work out.

After sealing up the pan I added a gallon of Valvoline Max Life ATF and some Lucas Oil Additive which was also advised against on this and other forums by some.

Guess what folks? I'm coming to you LIVE from the couch in my basement. Sitting in a fresh, clean pair of boxers that my girlfriend washed for me with a cold six pack of Heineken on my coffee table proudly announcing that my truck runs better than it ever has. And I ran the hell out of it on a 30 minute test drive.

My game plan now is to purchase another OEM trans filter to install in about 12k miles and a couple inline trans filters, one to be installed every 3k miles from here on out. Every oil change I will drain the pan and add a gallon and a quart of fresh Max Life ATF fluid untill the fluid stops being dark and returns to a red color. At 12k I will introduce another bottle of Lucas into the system as well. And hey, here's to another 250k with the original trans?

I hope so! And I hope this can help anyone in the same predicament I was in. You know why I love toyotas? One word.

Resilience.

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