Drain &Fill Transmission Fluid Change Question

[jonathandlee1]

Hell All,

I am new to this forum as well as new to owning a Lexus.

I have an 09 Lexus ES 350 and I did a drain and fill on my transmission fluid. I am just checking to see if I did it correctly as I have read other people do it differently.

Steps:

(Made sure car was level first)

1. I loosened the 24 mm fill plug. Then I removed the drain plug and got right under 4 qts of fluid removed (once I removed the overflow tube, it was exactly about 4 quarts that came out)

2. I screwed the overflow tube back in then the drain plug finger tight.

3. I then put 4 quarts back in through where the fill plug was. I tightened the bolt down to torque specs.

4. I then started the car and waited until the transmission fluid reached about 104 degrees fahrenheit. During that time of waiting, I cycled through all gears (Park, Neutral, Reverse, etc).

5. I then unscrewed the drain plug once the temperature was in the optimal range and let it drain until it first started to "trickle" then immediately screwed the drain plug back and torqued it to spec.

 

6. I noticed that right under 2.5 quarts came out right before the trickle.

Did I do everything right? Mind you, I was not trying to do a flush.

 

Thanks for your input!

[DSES350]

Thanks for sharing the steps. From what I’ve read and seen in youtube videos, this looks good to me. Never done it though. Are the gears shifting well ? any slipping of gears ? This is on my list too, but have not found the courage to do it myself. 

[jonathandlee1]

@DSS everything is shifting fine so far. I think next time, I'm going to try using the Valvoline maxlife ATF. I've used that in my previous old Camry and it shifted better than the OEM ATF.

Lexus tried to charge me over $500 just to do this service so I decided to do it myself.

[RX400h]

I'm a bit confused. You drained 4 quarts, added 4 quarts, then drained 2.5 quarts. Is that right? Wouldn't that mean you were left with only 1.5 quarts?

[jonathandlee1]

1 hour ago, RX400h said:

I'm a bit confused. You drained 4 quarts, added 4 quarts, then drained 2.5 quarts. Is that right? Wouldn't that mean you were left with only 1.5 quarts?

Yea. I think the transmission was initially overfilled. All the videos I saw typically only had 2.5 quarts removed initially. I'm not sure what most had removed once drained the second time.

That's part of the reason why I asked this question on this forum to see if I did it right. I did everything the videos said to do. It didn't start to trickle until that much fluid came out which from what I saw/hear is the indicator to when the fluid is level with the overflow tube.

[RX400h]

23 hours ago, jonathandlee1 said:

Yea. I think the transmission was initially overfilled. All the videos I saw typically only had 2.5 quarts removed initially. I'm not sure what most had removed once drained the second time.

That's part of the reason why I asked this question on this forum to see if I did it right. I did everything the videos said to do. It didn't start to trickle until that much fluid came out which from what I saw/hear is the indicator to when the fluid is level with the overflow tube.

I guess I never need to worry about that because I always changed my own transmission fluid. Late model vehicles are often "filled for life", on my 2024 Supra, that I'm not worried about it. I do change my manual transmission fluid in my Miata, although it has less than 70,000 miles on it at this time.

[Natty Bumppo]

Jonathan

How many miles on the ODO at this fluid service?

Are you the original owner? If not what was on the ODO when you bought  the car?

Is this your 1st tranny fluid change since owned?

What support system did you use to level the car when doing the tranny fluid change?

What was the tranny fluid temp when you did the drain out, or did you do the drain and fill when the tranny fluid was cold due to say overnight cool down?

If as you propose that the tranny was over filled when you drained out 4 qts and you put back 4 qts and when tranny reached near 104F you drained out 2.5 qts seems there would be noticeable operation symptoms of shifting, etc. before this service, were there any?  

If as stated there was that much error in the tranny fill it must have been from a previous tranny service done wrong? Such as a quick lube place.

Q: Assuming the tranny was correctly previously filled, somebody please explain why on these auto trannies a dead cold and accurately measured gravity fluid drain with stand pipe removed and replaced standpipe and drain plug and refilled with the same amount of fluid at same cold temp  of drained fluid will not be ok? If fluid out and fluid in are at the same temp the volumes are equal.    

Thank you 

 

 

 

[Natty Bumppo]

On 8/14/2024 at 5:29 PM, RX400h said:

I guess I never need to worry about that because I always changed my own transmission fluid. Late model vehicles are often "filled for life", on my 2024 Supra, that I'm not worried about it. I do change my manual transmission fluid in my Miata, although it has less than 70,000 miles on it at this time.

RX400h

Filled for life is definitely defined by Toyota/Lexus as soon as the power train warranty is over then it's your cost for a bad tranny. It would be an interesting warranty claim to get approved if the tranny failed say 10 miles before the powertrain warranty expired and if there was no misuse of the tranny ( that would be interesting for the factory to play with on a Supra) and no tranny fluid change as they claim is needed and it failed due to bad original fluid. They would have to honor it and replace the tranny. What if say 10 miles after the warranty expires?

On a previous post of mine on Oct 25 2024 regarding when to change tranny fluid I referenced Ahmed The Car Care Nut  and he uses 6 years or 60k which ever is first which you tended to agree with. 

[RX400h]

On 10/28/2024 at 11:08 AM, Natty Bumppo said:

RX400h

Filled for life is definitely defined by Toyota/Lexus as soon as the power train warranty is over then it's your cost for a bad tranny. It would be an interesting warranty claim to get approved if the tranny failed say 10 miles before the powertrain warranty expired and if there was no misuse of the tranny ( that would be interesting for the factory to play with on a Supra) and no tranny fluid change as they claim is needed and it failed due to bad original fluid. They would have to honor it and replace the tranny. What if say 10 miles after the warranty expires?

On a previous post of mine on Oct 25 2024 regarding when to change tranny fluid I referenced Ahmed The Car Care Nut  and he uses 6 years or 60k which ever is first which you tended to agree with. 

I agree that this would be a cautious approach, although I know quite a few people who have over 100,000 miles on their auto transmissions without any signs of issues. My son changed had his 2012 Mazda 3 transmission fluid changed at 100,000 miles. It had never and is not now having any problems.

Our 19.5 year-old RX400h now has over 140,000 miles on it. The service booklet recommends changing the transmission fluid only if the vehicle is regularly driven in the desert, dirt roads, and/or to tow a trailer (up to 3500 lbs), I believe. Most likely, we have already had the fluid changed at least once. 

Of all the auto manufacturers, I would say that Toyota/Lexus is the least likely to engineer their vehicles to fail after the warranty expires if no maintenance schedule for a fluid change is listed.