Has anyone tried using one of these fluid extractors to drain and fill their transmission fluid? My 4Runner has the transmission dipstick and I believe you have to remove part of the exhaust in order to access the pan, which I'm trying to avoid. Using one of these fluid extractors seem like it would be fine, just wanted another opinion. Thanks.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=vacuum+oi...b_sb_ss_i_1_11

I had one.

It worked pretty well on motor oil but it would leave about a half quart or so of dirty oil behind.

It was a ***** to clean (took way longer than an oil change), and if any little thing happened to the seals it would not work at all. It had to be cleaned thoroughly after every use with simple green and a lot of water. That was messier than an oil change but that may be just me.

So every other oil change you would have to do a full drain and fill anyway so I got fed up with it and sold it. Only got $35 or so for it. They’re hard to ship I guess and people know the seals can go bad. Mine was perfect and I still only had one look in like 4 months when selling it so they’re not really sought after.

I never got around to doing the transmission. Seems like it could work if you could get the tube to the lowest part of the tranny. Since you have an 03 and it has the dipstick it’s a maybe. Others may know more.

It’s fun to watch it work when it does actually work, but it’s kind of finicky getting it to go every time.

I don't think that device will do you any good, you'll only get the fluid out of the pan and you can do that simply by pulling the drain plug on the pan and no reason to pull any of the exhaust apart to do that, you only need to remove part of the exhaust to remove the pan not to get at the drain plug.

That being said just draining the pan will only remove about 1/4 of the fluid because the other 3/4 of the fluid is in the transmission and torque converter, the only way to remove all of the fluid is by doing it via the transmission fluid cooling lines, you can find how to do that in other transmission fluid flush/exchange topics on the forum or you can do several "drain and fills" over time a month or so a part.

Either way you go it will be a bit easier for you since you can refill the fluid via the dipstick tube and you will also be able to check the level with the dipstick, while us without a dipstick have to fill it either by the fill plug on the side of the transmission or via the cooling lines and then check the level by pulling the fluid level check plug.

Yeah, I may end up doing it over a month with smaller volumes of transmission fluid to change it completely, so buying this may be a more convenient way of taking out transmission fluid and replacing the same amount, they're not that expensive so I may end up trying this out.

Doing a fluid swap via transmission cooler lines is very easy, let the car do most of the work.

Check out your oil cooler hard lines before you do.

I had to replace the high pressure line for the steering and noticed my oil cooler lines are rusted and splitting.

I’m going replace them and exchange the fluid then.


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Yeah, I know mine are currently rusted, have been spraying Fluid Film and it's fine right now, but I did buy an OEM replacement awhile back, in the garage somewhere, haven't installed yet, but will likely do that when I do a drain and fill.