Considering Drain & Fill Tranny Fluid on 2007

I would do a couple series of drain and fills, but one should be fine. This service cost me 199.00 at my local Toyota dealership. If you know anything about me, I'm a shade tree mechanic, and I still paid to have this service done correctly. These transmissions cost way more than what I want to spend on an oops....

I have no comment on the WS fluid. I use it. It isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread like Toyota makes it out to be.

 

If I owned your BA ride, the trans fluid would be serviced at 60k at a minimum. Regardless of not towing, you do have a lift with bigger tires that adds stress to the drivetrain.

The diffs were serviced every 30k in my truck due to the use I put mine through.


One of my old friends that was a transmission repair shop owner for almost 40 years before his passing gave me this advise that I will share with you all about “the business” of transmissions.

- Transmissions are serviced, not flushed. Toilets are for flushing. In other words, he was a huge champion for drain and fills, filter swaps (servicing) every 20k or 1 year, which ever comes first.

Do I think this is excessive for a Tundra? Yes. Did my WS transmission fluid look dark at 60k? Yep. I wish that I had did a drain and fill at 30k, and every 30k after that. I made a few mistakes with my old Tundra, and would do it differently if owning another.

- Flushing machines. Tim was approached by different sales associates for different machines. Some would use a series of ultra fine filters and would pump the fluid that came out of the transmission right back into the vehicle. Yeah, the fluid is filtered and cleaned, but what about the additive properties? What happens when the machine is hooked up wrong? Can this damage the valve body and solenoids? Hell yes it can. There are proper flushing machines available, but these units are not cheap. When hooking up the machine, are you sure all lines are flushed with the proper transmission fluid? Food for thought.

- He was always a big fan of external cooling for transmission fluid. Some vehicles use engine coolant for cooling/heating that keeps the trans between 180-210*F. What happens on hot days and heavy work/pulling? Transmission temps can rise up to 250* F pretty easy, which in turn raises the engine coolant temp, and works the engine/coolant systems hard. If I remember correctly, on our Tundra transmissions, the external cooler isn’t even used until 250*F. That’s getting pretty flippen hot.

- Power adders (he was a diesel junky) are stock transmission killers. If someone experiences the “transmission shudder or slipping”, the transmission is already damaged to some extent. Continued slipping will cause a transmission early demise in a very short period of time.

Now the Tundra was designed with the SC as an option through TRD. It can handle that power increase with ease. He was more so talking about diesel trucks that make 400hp/800 lb ft tq factory and then some person installing a programmer adding 200hp/250+ lb ft tq and abusing the truck. The transmissions were not designed with that power and no torque management.

Right now on my current truck, I have gone back to the service transmission every 25k miles. It costs me ~100.00 to do myself. Cheap insurance for long life. Modern automatic transmissions are not cheap.

 

I would do some research if using someone other than the dealership, asking the correct questions on their process.