tranny flush and dealers

[Armandi]

just drained my tranny fluid today and it was brown. I refilled with some mobil 1 synthetic. I called my local dealer to see how much a tranny flush was and they told me that they dont do them and Toyota doesnt recommend them because it can lead to further problems. I called three other dealers and they all do the flush and say its recommended. What the f***? Which one is it? I just bought a 98 with 76k and i dont think its been changed recently. I will be driving form ny to CA soon. Should i have it done?

 

[Armandi]

i just got off the phone with toyota corporate and they told me that it will only help to have it flushed. I found a dealer that does it for 129. It just sucks that i wasted $$$ on filling mobil 1 in there to just have it flushed out. I also found out that the last time it was changed was at 35k.

 

[toyoboy]

The reason dealers want you to flush the trany is that when you drain the atf, only and little over 1/3 of the oil is drain and the rest is still in the trans. So what I would do is drain and refill. drive the vehicle for a day or two, then drain and refill till the fluid is nice and red on the dip stick. Wala you save $100

 

[Jim_Chow]

That's one thing I don't like about auto trannies. Since most of the fluid is in the torque converter, you either need one of those fancy machines, or you need to drain the pan and measure the amount, refill the pan, then disconnect the hose from the ATF cooler and direct that into a bucket. THen you run the engine until just a little less than what you drained from the pan is in the bucket, stop the engine, refill the pan, repeat. It takes like 4-5 gal of ATF to completely flush a LC80 tranny. And and around $8/qt, that's well over $120-150 right there for fluid. If it were a manual, you just drain & fill like you do w/ engine oil (3 qts synthetic, so only $25).

The other way is to drain & fill the ATF pan each time you change the oil. After a half dozen times or so, the old ATF should have been flushed out, but only 1/4 of the ATF will be new at any given time.

If you wait too long to flush the ATF (say, it's never done in 120K mi) and then flush, the new ATF can break debris loose, and that'll trash the tranny. I know one guy's brother did this to his old Celica...tranny died a week after the flush.

 

[Armandi]

yeah i think im gonna try the dilution method of repeated drain and refills using mobil 1. I didnt notice any shaving or anything so i think i'll be ok.