High miles transmission question

2014 SR5, 186k, bought it at 148k. Not sure of prior transmission maintenance. Will a drain and fill suffice without dropping pan?...or cleaning strainer...(Pan bolts a little rusty, concerned about them breaking). Thanks in advance!

 

I would just concentrate on doing a few drain and fills. Pan bolts are probably in for good by now.

 

Ok on strainer??

 

wouldn't bother changing the strainer, it's not really a filter, it keeps the chunks out, they are usually spotless when people change them anyway. Drain and fill is a safe way to introduce some new fluid with a fresh batch of lubricant and friction modifiers. Doing a drain and fill with your next few oil changes will do a good job of getting mostly fresh fluid in.

 

Thx!

 

I might consider sending a sample of the ATF drained from your first D&F to a lab for their recommendations. I and many others here use Blackstone. Other labs probably just as good.

 

I definitely would leave the pan bolts alone or you are going to create a huge headache. This is my thread on dropping my pan and changing the filter and my truck only had 34k on her and i broke a pan bolt.
https://www.tundras.com/threads/my-transmission-pan-adventure.110777/

 

Copy that on testing.

And I have seen some horror videos on broken pan bolts! Really didn't want to go there!

Another question...what about other brands of fluid, besides Toyota, that are WS rated??
Federated, etc?

 

Interested in that as well as changing diff and TC fluid. Coming up on 100k and need to do it. Probably going to swap spark plugs and steering

 

Valvoline max life atf has worked well for me in several Toyotas over hundreds of thousands of miles. It's readily available, reasonably priced, and compatible.

I have also used the AISIN WS fluid with similar results. I find it through rock auto.

 

I can confirm this, at 270K, I swapped mine out, it was relatively clean and could've been reused, but I decided to leave it out. It's in my garage in a plastic bag.