06frozone

Hello. I recently bought a 2002 ES300 with 102,xxx miles on it. I bought it to be a DD to save miles on my performance car. Well, I thought I should do a tune-up to extend the longevity of the engine.

I changed the PCV valve, oil, sparkplugs, and most recently the AT transmission fluid and filter.

I drained and dropped the pan, the fluid looks slightly burnt, but not horrible, not much of a burnt smell either. I changed it with dextron VI fluid and used part number TF174 from AutoZone for the filter(paper). I measured and added back the same amount of fluid. I am pretty sure the pan has never been dropped, because the magnets were dirty(cleaned), the gasket was cork, and the metal filter had a few questionable shavings in it. Two were ~3mm in size, but the rest were small.

Well, immediately after changing it and driving ~10 miles, I noticed a whining noise that was not there before. I chalked it up to cavitation. 5 hours later I had to go to work. It sat in a garage from 12am to 5am. Started it up and proceeded to drive as normal. Well, on my 5 minute commute, the tranny shook violently while switching from 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th under brisk acceleration(pedal maybe 1/3 of the way down). I tried it again, 3 hours later, engine cold and it did the same thing under brisk acceleration. It does not matter if the engine is warm or cold. If I accelerate slowly, it does not shudder. It also does not shudder on deceleration.

What could the problem be?

I have been lurking on here and owners club, as well as general google searches, and I think I may have narrowed it down to either
1. The paper filter is clogged already due to the metal mesh not being able to to trap such small particle size.
2. Draining and refilling caused the metal suspended in the fluid to be removed/lower concentration ruining the transmission.
3. Fluid level slightly high or low
4. Wrong type of ATF
5.???

Would using dextron VI cause the engine to whine or shudder violently?

Am I missing something? is

I still have the old fluid and filter.

I took a half day today in order to fix this issue, as I have a 500 miles trip I planned on taking the car for on thanksgiving.

Please help me!

Nick

fortitude

I have heard of people using the OEM spec'd Toyota IV or Max Life full synth.
Did the transmission shift ok prior to the drain/fill?
If so, it may be best to start from the base line, which is Toyota brand IV. I say this because if you use another product other than Toyota brand and the trans still acts up you still have an open variable.
There are several threads on full fluid evacuation methods (removing trans line from cooler, run/discharge/refill cycles) to fully remove fluid.
You mention paper filter? I thought it was a metal screen only - I could be wrong?

LeX2K

Dexron VI is the wrong fluid for the transmission don't drive the car at all until the fluid is replaced. Use Toyota Type T-IV, Mobil 3309, Royal Purple ATF, Valvoline MaxLife or any number of fluids that are T-IV compatible.

BTW you will have replace ALL of the Dex VI fluid hopefully no damage was done to the transmission.

808mcv20l

I was just gonna say, I think Dextron VI is the wrong stuff...

I just changed the fluid in the tranny 2x on my 2000 ES in the last 3 weeks.

First time I dropped the pan to find that I didn't have the right gasket/filter, I had the one for the A541e unused from my 99 Camry 1MZ.

Once I discovered it was different I put the pan back and filled with Valvoline Max Life ATF (I had this sitting around) was originally going to fill it with AMSOIL Signature ATF. I filled 3.5 quarts

Drove it for 2 weeks to get the new ATF mixed in with the old, no problems, super smooth shifts.

Once I got the correct parts for the U140e toyota original, cork gasket and filter w/ new bolts, I did another drop and fill. This time, I noticed when I dropped the filter there was quite a bit more fluid in there. Ended up filling 3.7-3.8 quarts to get it to the MAX level on the HOT side.

If I were you I'd drain & fill it with the correct fluid immediately, drive it around and do another drain & fill, there's quite a bit that's trapped in the torque converter.

Oro

The first thing is to not drive it at all, as mentioned, you risk doing real damage if not already done.

a) Since you did not verify the fill was right by checking it properly, you need to be prepared for more damage, so know this going in. Hopefully not. T-IV typically has a dark and smelly appearance with age so let's say it was normal at the beginning and no prior damage.

b) First, I would start the car and check the fluid properly. Google this proceedure but basically you shift through all gears to make sure lines and drums are actuated, fluid is being actively pumped, and then with the car running check the stick. This is frequently not done and results in under-filling when serviced at home, and resulting friction plate damage.

c) Follow this procedure to get out the wrong fluid in totality:

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/10...lush-pics.html

3 gallons of MaxLife from WalMart will set you up, set you back about $56.

d) after doing the above, check the fluid level as he outlines at the end.

If you can't do it because of shop/space limits, have a professional or skilled friend do it. The filters on these never really need changing - many mechanics skip that because it's more hassle for no gain (as you saw, it's not a paper filter that clogs).

While you are messing around with the fluid and tubes, here is another good maintenance item to do:

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/10...ce-needed.html

Hopefully, when things are soon all right, set a schedule and do a drain/fill on the AT (just drain/fill, not flush as outlined above), and also the PS (again, just drain/fill reservoir instead of flush as above). 30k miles is a good interval to do drain/fills to keep these systems very healthy for a very long time and to avoid having to completely flush/swap the systems.

06frozone

I put maxlife in and it did not fix the problem. I didn't want to drop the pan again due to the three bolts so close to the frame. After maxlife did not work, i changed back to the old oem filter and refilled with the same maxlife and problem solved! I threw the garbage autozone paper filter out and will continue to drain and refill to get the rest out. I forgot to mention i did a PS flush too. I am currently changing the suspension now. I have the rare option of adaptive suspension so i found used struts on ebay. Hopefully this car will last a long time! Thanks for everyone's advice!

Oro

Probably the paper filter was more restrictive and it was starving the pump and your TC was running partially full. Would fit the symptoms.

I have had a few very experience Toyota mechanics tell me not to mess with the filters on these and similar Aisin's - yet another data point for us. Thanks for updating the story.