Transmission fluid change on a 2011 Sport v6

Ado · Aug 18, 2020

Hi everyone

I recently got my oil changed and was informed my transmission fluid was very dark- “about due for a change”. I bought the car about 10,000 miles ago and am unsure if the previous owner ever changed the fluid (it is at 115,000). I am skeptical to drain and replace all the fluid at once being that I’ve heard this can lead to serious transmission problems. I am wondering if anyone has some recommendations on how I should go about this? Should I be draining half, replacing, driving for a few hundreds miles and repeat? If so- is there an easy way to go about this or do I need to take the whole pan off?
I am pretty inexperienced in car mechanics, and am hoping this is something I can do myself but also don’t want to destroy my transmission. Thanks!

Foryota · Aug 18, 2020

Hi Ado. Have a look here for “return line flush” in the 4.3 Mechanical section. You’ll find detailed step by step instructions on doing this with a friend/helper. Some members still ascribe to “I’ve never changed transmission fluid and never had a problem” yet others do change it and swear by that method. I fall into the latter camp - I did drop my pan and change half the fluid last year, and it’s been fine. I also cleaned the filings from the magnets in the pan, which confirmed my decision to change the fluid. I will do a return line flush with another pan drop to get a full change done, at some point this fall.

If you don’t feel comfortable doing the return line flush, you can do multiple drop and fills, about a week apart, until the fluid is mostly red. It’s less effective and more wasteful, but simpler.

For the record, Toyota advises that the fluid is good “for the life of the transmission “ but if the fluid wears down the transmission dies... circular statement on their part. They do test for durability to 200,000 MILES but a home fluid flush is cheap insurance right? Much less than $100 all in, and you’ll have new fluid, seems an easy choice.

Ado · Aug 18, 2020

Foryota,

Thank you very much for the response!!

SoNic67 · Aug 18, 2020

Drain and refill with engine off cannot do any damage. Only forced flush with an external pressure machine can do that.
I usually do three drain/refill, spaced a week apart.
If you delay too much, the damage to the clutch materials will be irreversible, slippage will increase progressively, and it will require a transmission rebuild.

KTL · Aug 18, 2020

Ado said:
I am skeptical to drain and replace all the fluid at once being that I’ve heard this can lead to serious transmission problems.

I was caught in a similar dilemma back in 5/2018 about whether to drain-and-refill or completely flush the transmission fluid at 108k miles. I decided the do the latter with the parts here and just a month ago, I did a drain-and-refill since I had put on about 21k miles since then. I'm happy to say that I've yet to have any "serious" problems. Like others have mentioned, you can do a drain-and-refill a few times if you don't want to flush it out at one time.

I also did a complete flush on my other vehicle ('12 Highlander) at ~93k miles since the shifting didn't feel right. That took about 5 hours due to 4 pan bolts blocked by a subframe, but it too feels good now and when it reaches the next 20k miles mark, I'll just do a drain-and-refill.

DL175 · Aug 19, 2020

You need to check the fluid color and smell if the ATF is burnt. If it has some pink color but a little light brown then it should be ok to change the fluid. I suggest reading up until you are sure if you want to do a drain and fill or a return line flush.

The danger with changing ATF is that the grit can be the only thing preventing the transmission from slipping. If you remove all the fluid the transmission goes. If you don't change the transmission fluid ever then the transmission will fail eventually. So the dilemma is that a failure of the transmission can cost well over $5k.

So the lesson here is change your ATF at the proper interval so you don't face this problem or if buying a used vehicle know what you are getting into if you have no idea when the ATF has been changed.

Transmission fluid change on a 2011 Sport v6

Ado

Foryota

Ado

SoNic67

KTL

DL175

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