Transmissions are a vital component in our cars, and with more electronic control, increased number of gears, and increased city driving/traffic, we need to do maintenance on our car's transmissions periodically. Toyota's BS about "lifetime transmission fluid" means that the fluid will keep your transmission working at least through their warranty. If you plan on leasing or selling your car off before it acts up, I wouldn't bother with the maintenance. For me, we plan to keep our cars longer than the warranty, and I did some research on fluids.
The forums are littered with 2 perspectives: use only toyota WS fluid, and those that are using something better, like amsoil or equivalent. I'm part of the initial group, and although WS isn't the best fluid there is out there, it works and if I change it often, it'll work fine for my needs. I suppose there's a 3rd group who will use other fluids as well (valvoline maxlife is what I'm thinking here), but multi-manufacturer fluids may not work perfectly for every brand. YMMV.
I've done fluid swaps on an '08 yaris, '18 camry, '12 prius, '14 yaris, and '16 avalon. All take WS, and all have different drain/fill techniques. All had drastically different mileage intervals where the fluid was swapped, but all are running down the road equal to how they were before. The common thing on all these was I didn't flush the transmission, but just did a drain and fill. Each car was roughly 2-3 quarts drained, and for the cars with dipsticks, I measured the drained and added back the equivalent and checked the dipstick. For those like the prius, it's similar to a manual transmission or transfer case where you drain, fill until it falls out the fill hole, and cap. For those without dipsticks, I use a temperature gun to measure transmission temperature while idling after draining and refilling with a bit extra fluid, then drain excess fluid when it's at the correct temperature. This is somewhere around 104-114F. You can also use a higher level code scanner or scan gauge to read transmission fluid temperature, though the temperature gun was sufficient for my usage.
I'd recommend ~30k mile intervals for those who like doing maintenance frequently and if you do more city than highway miles. I'd also say this is a good benchmark if you tow or have heavy loads consistently. Otherwise, I'd go 50-60k mile intervals for normal maintenance and/or more highway miles. Considering it's $10 a quart, 3 quarts, about $30 to do a fluid drian/fill, it's cheap insurance for a healthy transmission. Since most transmissions hold upwards of 12 quarts, 3 quarts changed isn't much of the total capacity, but will refresh the fluid slightly. I know there are plenty that never change their fluid and the cars still last a long time, but for me, I'd rather just do the maintenance and keep my transmission shifting smoothly.
As for the review of the fluid, works great. No complaints other than I had several of the bottles seep/leak during shipping. Amazon took care of this however and all the cars that used this fluid are working as expected many thousands of miles later.
| Manufacturer | Toyota |
|---|---|
| Brand | Toyota |
| Model | 00289-ATFWS |
| Item Weight | 8 ounces |
| Product Dimensions | 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 inches |
| Item model number | 00289-ATFWS |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Manufacturer Part Number | WS |
