4th Gen rear diff fluid
 

My wife just took her truck to Avis and the tech told her she needs to change the rear diff fluid because he "checked" it and it has "shavings" in it.

Basically I am asking if this could be true, and if so, can I change the diff fluid myself?

FYI, it is a 2WD V6.

They are pants on fire lying to you. There are two plugs on the diff. a lower magnetic plug and an upper fill plug.

The only way to know that there are shavings in it is to pull the lower plug. and if you pull the lower plug all the oil come out. so he would have effectively changed the oil for her.

Now, the good part. he is right, you do need to change your gear oil. How do I know? Because no one ever does it and it should be done every 30000 miles or so.

And if you can change your own oil, you can do this. its simple.

Oil drain pan under read diff.
Remove upper plug, set aside.
Remove lower plug and drain out the gear oil.
Clean the lower plug, inspect for shavings.
Replace lower plug
Fill top opening with new gear oil (I use Mobil 1 synthetic).
Diff is full when the oil get to the lip of the fill opening.
Replace top plug.
You are done.

He COULD have opened the fill plug and stuck a magnet in there I guess.. Chances of that are beyond slim tho. As Morphyne stated, it should be done every so often and it's incredibly easy to do. http://www.toyota-4runner.org/mainte...-included.html

Thank you.

I appreciate your replies.

I tried telling her they were full of shibby... but, you know how that goes. Even though I do all the work on my Jeep...ie, I changed all the fluids, put on a suspension lift, done brakes/rotors/CVs.. etc, etc... the guys at Avis are smarter than I am. :tape:

I hear you. Chose those battles carefully....

When you change to sunthetic, do you have to flush the whole sytem or can you just drain out the old oil and then fill it back up with the 75w-90 syn? sorry for the dumb question I just didn't know if it mattered if they mixed

Just drain and fill. No need to flush.

Just changed rear differential fluid on my 06 4Runner.
Everyone can do it - very simple.


I also filmed a quick how-to video.
Hopefully it'll be helpful:

http://youtu.be/qxY2liBnOFE

...

hi is there a front diff if so is it easy to change like rear one?

If it's 4WD then yes. There's a little less space up there since you can't lower the spare tire to make extra room like in the back, but it's still easy to change. You may need a pump (like a soap dispenser but bigger) to fill it up. Shouldn't be too expensive. There's a transfer case/center differential full of gear oil, too. See this thread: http://www.toyota-4runner.org/mainte...-included.html

It has to be 4WD in order to have a Front Diff

That just means the 2wd is even easier. It is almost like not doing it at all.