Advice-Drop the Pan or Dealer Flush?

[klennop]

As the weather is getting better, I plan to do this flush very soon.
My question refers to the pic the riverwolf posted. With the clear tubing attached to the return line and dumping the used ATF into a container, can you then put the black hose into a container of fresh ATF and have it draw the fresh ATF right into the tranny? Would the black return line produce sufficient suction to do this? If so, you could then do the whole flush right from the front of the vehicle.
Anyone know?

I never thought about that before...that would be crazy simple if you could! You could try it and report back. I would try it but I just changed all my fluid out.

 

[klennop]

I'm at 50,000 miles and I have never and do not plan to tow. What do you guys recomend?

Complete flush?
Drain pan and replace?
Do nothing and wait for 60,000? 75,000?

Well I bought my 4Runner used, seemed treated really well. All maintenance up to date, service records, etc. It never looked like the guy towed with it, hitch mount was like new under the cap. However I am going to be taking a long trip towing 3 motorcycles, etc. so for peace of mind I wanted to change out the fluids. Manual said change transmission fluid at 100K unless you do a lot of towing, then do it at 60K. The dealer said multiple times, you don't have to change it out. My truck has 60K on it so I changed out the Diffs, transfer case, and transmission using the method posted. Where you add some in the tranny, and let the hose pump out the top, ad, drain, add, drain until the fluid looks good. I used 13 or 14 quarts.

Now for my truck being taken care of and no towing, etc. The WS fluid was not cherry red at all, looked a little darker than new motor oil. I was going to take a picture of how it looked but I didn't have anything clear at the time to put it in. I felt it was a good move to change it at 60K. I also know I will do it again at 120K because of what it looked like. I can't imagine what the stuff would look like at 100K!!