HELP!!! Transmission Slip

montijo505

montijo505

Senior Member
Hello gents,

I haven't really been on here in a while. But I have a problem. My wife has been driving the 4Runner (2008 SR5 4x4 V6) since I sold her car about a year and a half ago. She loves it and gets compliments all the time. People think its great when she gets out and shes five foot and a hundred and fifteen pounds and drives that rig. Anyway now for the issue. About three days ago I did the routine oil change (Mobil 1 5W30 and filter from Toyota). Two days ago my wife told me the 4Runner was driving weird. I took it out for a drive this morning and the transmission is slipping. I took it from a cold start (usually what she does) but its not very cold here in the first place, its about 30-35 Fahrenheit and its in the garage overnight. From a stop it gets going for a second and then slips and then catches suddenly. It seems like it kind of has a hard time getting to normal speeds (40 MPH) but as it warms up the slip goes away. I don't know much about automatic transmissions having driven manuals up until this 4Runner. I read somewhere on the forum that it could be low transmission fluid? To be honest I have never replaced it. I bought the 4Runner with 92K and its up to 130K now. I have not seen any leaking. Its parked in the garage every night and there is no stains, did not notice anything on the pan either when I was down there a couple of days ago. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated. I will take it to a good Toyota shop in town tomorrow but a grasp of whats going on before hand would be good. Thanks in advance guys and gals.
 
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Did you accidentally drain the trans and put in the Mobile 1?
That's happened before.

Otherwise have you checked the level of the trans fluid? And what does it look like? It should be red to ark red. Not brown and not have a burnt smell.
 
fourwd1 said:
Did you accidentally drain the trans and put in the Mobile 1?
That's happened before.

Otherwise have you checked the level of the trans fluid? And what does it look like? It should be red to ark red. Not brown and not have a burnt smell.
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No I'm super careful and check and triple check things before I remove/drain anything. I haven't checked the fluid yet, I'll go do it now.

EDIT: just looked up how to check the fluid level and that's more than I'm comfortable with lol. I'll take it to a shop tomorrow and have it checked and possibly serviced.
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fourwd1 said:
Did you accidentally drain the trans and put in the Mobile 1?
That's happened before.

Otherwise have you checked the level of the trans fluid? And what does it look like? It should be red to ark red. Not brown and not have a burnt smell.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he wouldn't be the first to do this. OP you might want to go take a look at that trans pan drain bolt and see if it has fresh marks on it from a recent removal. Seems too coincidental that you drain the oil and now the trans is acting like its a few quarts low on fluid. Also, there is no real way to check if a 4th gen is low on fluid since nothing would come out of the check plug. You have to overfill it a little and let it drain out to be sure its at the correct level.

OR - even easier - go check your oil level and see if its way overfilled.
 
hearno said:
Yeah, he wouldn't be the first to do this. OP you might want to go take a look at that trans pan drain bolt and see if it has fresh marks on it from a recent removal. Seems too coincidental that you drain the oil and now the trans is acting like its a few quarts low on fluid. Also, there is no real way to check if a 4th gen is low on fluid since nothing would come out of the check plug. You have to overfill it a little and let it drain out to be sure its at the correct level.

OR - even easier - go check your oil level and see if its way overfilled.
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OH MY GOD, I totally drained the transmission now that I checked the pan to be sure. I checked my engine oil level and its way overfilled lol. I'll have the transmission filled and drain and fill the engine oil tomorrow. Any damage that could result from this?

PS. It was a long day, did the oil change at 10 PM after working ten hours, never doing that again lol.

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Just be sure to use the WS fluid from Toyota, not one of the universal fluids, since you didn't drive very far I bet it will be ok.
 
I'll have a shop do it, I don't want to risk messing anything else up, anyone have a good write up on how to top it off? Or is it literally just undo the fill and over flow plug and stop when it runs out of the overflow?

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The fill plug is about 1/2 or 3/4 of the way up the transmission towards the back, it's a 15/16" or 24mm, either will fit. Remove it and verify the plug says "WS", put in about 4 quarts (that's about what comes out when you do a drain and fill) Jumper 4 and 13 on the OBD port and start the truck. Shift from park into D, then move the shifter from D to N 6 times. Once the temp is at spec the light will illuminate and you pull the other plug on the tranny (level check plug) let it drain till its just a drip and seal it back up. Should be good to go.
 
Brian3676 said:
The fill plug is about 1/2 or 3/4 of the way up the transmission towards the back, it's a 15/16" or 24mm, either will fit. Remove it and verify the plug says "WS", put in about 4 quarts (that's about what comes out when you do a drain and fill) Jumper 4 and 13 on the OBD port and start the truck. Shift from park into D, then move the shifter from D to N 6 times. Once the temp is at spec the light will illuminate and you pull the other plug on the tranny (level check plug) let it drain till its just a drip and seal it back up. Should be good to go.
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Thanks, sounds easy enough, my only question I suppose is if I should have a shop do a flush or should I just fill it up? I intend on keeping this thing till it dies so I really would like to avoid causing any damage. As far as dumping another five and a half quarts of engine oil when it wasn't drained, is there any harm that can come from that? I'm going to drain it and fill it tomorrow but just wondering.

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montijo505 said:
OH MY GOD, I totally drained the transmission now that I checked the pan to be sure. I checked my engine oil level and its way overfilled lol. I'll have the transmission filled and drain and fill the engine oil tomorrow. Any damage that could result from this?

PS. It was a long day, did the oil change at 10 PM after working ten hours, never doing that again lol.
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Eh.. it happens. I wouldn't worry too much about damage as it was only down a few quarts for a little while. Get it topped off and call it a lesson learned.
 
I did a similar thing a few years back. I drained 3.5qts for a trans fluid drain and fill, but I refilled 3.5qts of atf into the oil dip stick tube instead of the atf dip stick tube (2004 model). My wife called the next day saying the trans was slipping like crazy. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized my error. I went to the local dealer, bought 4 qts of T-IV and topped it back off. I then changed the engine oil, we'll overfilled, and all was good.

That was 30k miles ago and we haven't had a problem at all. You'll likely be just fine after you get the fluid adjusted correctly.
 
ASUMTNEER said:
I did a similar thing a few years back. I drained 3.5qts for a trans fluid drain and fill, but I refilled 3.5qts of atf into the oil dip stick tube instead of the atf dip stick tube (2004 model). My wife called the next day saying the trans was slipping like crazy. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized my error. I went to the local dealer, bought 4 qts of T-IV and topped it back off. I then changed the engine oil, we'll overfilled, and all was good.

That was 30k miles ago and we haven't had a problem at all. You'll likely be just fine after you get the fluid adjusted correctly.
Click to expand...
So glad to hear that

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