Early transmission service worth it?

Here’s what I did:
Talked to the dealership here in central VT and they said they do not do trans fluids and recommended against it!

Talked to my regular shop in detail about the drain and fill procedure - getting it to temp, Toyota fluids only, etc, etc - and he knew exactly what I was talking about.

So I had them do the drain/fill a little early you might say at ~45k.

I would have loved to have done this *perfectly* myself but I don’t have the time/patience/facility do do it. And I trust my shop.

 

For anybody that is nervous or worried that they can't complete an ATF drain and fill, If you can change your own oil you can do the transmission service yourself. I can actually do the ATF drain and fill faster than an oil change simply because of the oil filter and skid plate. Even with the check procedure once you learn it, there's really nothing to it. Glad you got it done though!

 

Drain and fill is a piece of cake. minus having to remove cat plate other than that its super easy

 

Do any of you ‘reset’ the degradation values for the trans when you do a fluid exchange?
Are there any negatives to NOT resetting that counter?

 

I did. I think the only negative is 5 years from now when you forget what was done when: the number won't be useful to remind you.

 

Toyota says to reset it after half of the fluid or more has been replaced so I reset mine for the first time since I've done a few fluid exchanges. Not sure if it makes any difference but figured id do it.

 

is it purely a number to remind the owner of when the trans service is due?

does that value cause the transmission to act any differently, i.e. if I change the fluid, but don’t reset the degradation number, will the trans act/shift/drive differently?

 

The max value it can go to is 65,535 and Toyota says to replace the fluid if it reaches 50,000. Whether or not it has any effect on the transmission behavior I don't think anyone besides Toyota actually knows for sure since there is no documentation I could find anywhere. I'd like to know the answer myself.

 

do you need a speciality program tool to reset that value? Tech stream?

 

Yes you need Techstream to reset it, not sure if other tools can but your basic OBD tool will only be able to see the value not reset it. You can usually find a copy of TechStream on Amazon with a cable for a decent price though and then you just need a laptop.