I really wanted a drain and fill

I had a total of 3 drain and fills for my truck. Now I’m trying to get my 4th one. However, my mechanic is nicely declining to do it. We’re actually pretty good friends and he’s the only person I trust to do my trans service. He thinks that I’m being obsessive with the maintenance on my truck but I really want to get this done before the summer hits. He only charges $80 for drain and fill w/ WS fluid.
He’s telling me that your transmission fluid is as clean as it can get but I’ll never be satisfied until I get another one. My plan was to get one every fall and spring but apparently that’s overkill for my trans. I don’t feel comfortable waiting 60k miles for a drain and fill considering all the towing and hauling I do. If the fluid isn’t dark now, it may be by then and I’m closing in on 290k miles.

 

If I could do it myself I would but I’m not mechanically inclined enough.

 

3 d&f over 290k miles? Not much. I'd expect one every 30k miles. I have done 2 of them by 32k miles, because my truck ran coolerless till recently and ATF was getting brown quickly.

You can always add a few oz of Lubegard HFM if you tow and afraid of eating up the frictions prematurely. This stuff is magic.

 

Not over the life but as far as what I did. I know the previous owner did 2 fluid exchanges.

 

Why does he give a shit? You're paying for it, just do it.

 

Can you drain and refill the sink? Go for it!

 

I can’t, I’ll have to find someone else to do it. Perhaps the dealer. He nicely told me I can bring my truck in for anything else but that. He told me to stop overdoing the trans fluid change. I’ll take his word that the fluid is clean and close to bright red but geez I wish I could see for myself. Sucks that it doesn’t have a dipstick.

 

He’s pretty strict with trans service intervals lol. He may allow 30k.

 

I actually had the first 2 a month a part and then the 3rd roughly 15k miles later. How is this obsessive? My truck shifts much better thanks to this and I want to keep it that way.

 

Probably has a backlog of higher paying projects/repairs right now.

 

Offer to pay him more.

$80 including fluid? Sounds like he's giving you the bro deal, so I can see why he wouldn't wanna' do it more than needed.

 

I don’t see a reason your mechanic would lie if the fluid he is taking out is red it’s a waste of money to do more now. I like to do drain and fillers every 50-70k miles. I would take your mechanics advice

 

At this point I guess I’ll wait. Anyway, do you guys think it’s safe to do a fluid exchange using the transmissions’ own pump (that’s what one dealership does and some others offer drain/fill) I know my truck had 2 fluid exchanges earlier in its life before I even bought it.

 

Just watch the car care nut channel video on Youtube and do the simple drain and fill. Nothing difficult about it. Basically, if it isn't hot or leaking and you measure what comes out and what goes in, your transmission can't be any worse off than it is right now. You will need some sort of pump to fill with, I use a giant syringe (~10") type. Loosen fill plug before the drain. New seal washers are cheap and available from Amazon.

 

I used the trans cooler return lines to completely change fluid on a 92 Ranger, worked well because the lines were accessible. Don't know where the lines are on our Tundras...again, access.

 

Did the drain and fill. Feel much better. One question I have is, does the new fluid ever flow through the torque converter? Since this is my 4th drain and fill, I wonder what percentage of new fluid I have. I think the total trans capacity is roughly 12 if I’m not mistaken.

 

Why wouldn't new or old fluid go thru TC - it must. When I take my vehicles to a place like a valvoline center - for a transmission they do multiple drain-fills having me start it for about 10 seconds after each one until it finally drains translucent - that is how you get all the old fluid out. Your way (3 drain-fills then drive before another) there is some old left because the drain-fills were not done in series so the old and new mix up in the pan a little bit on the last portion. NBD.

 

It’s bad to get a drain and fill during the summer right? Some people say it’s ok and some say only do it during fall or spring. I guess I agree because with extreme temperatures, it can take the transmission longer to cool down. This is also true for the winter, as it’ll take a bit longer for the transmission to warm up. There’s a temp check procedure when changing the transmission fluid and it can take longer with temps being high like the high 80s or 90s+.

 

I think anytime I remember And get motivated to do trans DFs is a Good time to do it. If hot out do it first thing in the morning - the trans takes a while to fully heat up.

 

Yep.

Ideally one would just perform the drain and fill after the truck has been sitting all night. My truck lives outside, but even with starting the engine to pull into the garage, the trans has always cooled down (during drain and fill) sufficiently to perform the leveling procedure.

 

https://youtu.be/NUAuGmDGntY?si=MKzTDY3igrybJMlb

Here's the video that was mentioned above on the proper drain and fill (+fluid level check) procedure. It's a bit intimidating to some who are not mechanically inclined but if you follow his directions it's really very simple

 

After seeing the video, I think next time for a d&f, I’ll be doing it myself. Just curious, do most of you prefer to drain it cold or hot? What happens if you drain it hot? I’m curious.

 

The first step is admitting you have a drain-and-fill addiction.

 

Good lord, step away from the ledge.

If you want to do a D/F do it whenever. You can either 1) add back what you drained and call it good or 2) add back and then set the fluid level with the check port.

I don’t know how many you feel you need to do. I do a D/F every 30k miles. I did a full fluid exchange at 85k when I bought the vehicle.

 

I do lol. I finally want to do one myself instead of depending on someone else

 

Ideally drain the pan while cold. Otherwise you would have to wait for all the fluid to cool down before performing the leveling procedure.

My truck lives outside, so I need to start and pull into the garage. I'm quick about it so not to warm the fluid too much, but everything cools down enough during the D&F to level properly at the end. I would say it usually takes between 5 and 10 minutes of idling to achieve the temperature required for leveling (the truck will let you know)

I also lift the rear of the truck enough to level out the frame before draining and filling as my garage has a slight grade to it (most should/do).

 

So when I last got my drain and fill at the dealer. I dropped it off in the morning, roughly 8 am. It was already like 76 degrees out and the temp was going to rise through the day and I drove like 20 minutes or so to get there. They had my truck the whole day and called me near the time they was closing and said it was ready. I didn’t ask but I wondered how many hours it took to cool the fluid down before they started.

 

If I drop my truck off in the morning and it’s hot out (especially in the summer) I shouldn’t expect to hear that it takes a few hours to complete a drain and fill. It would at least take a half day or whole day.

 

It didn’t take the dealer half the day to do your drain and fill they just took their sweet time calling you to pick your truck up, if you stayed and waited for your truck it would have gotten done a lot quicker

 

I absolutely believe it would take several hours for the fluid to come down in temperature enough to level correctly.

I don't think they have a choice but to wait for the atf to cool. Unless they just decide to be lazy and replace the amount which came out.

Really can't see the dealer actively attempting to quickly cool the transmission to perform the service quickly. But I could always be wrong.