BassLA

I searched but couldn't find any specific answer for the ES so here goes. I just picked up a 01 ES300 and I need to replace the transmission fluid. Just a drain and fill as there are over 200K miles on the car and I don't know when it was last changed - quite some time ago judging by the color. Has anyone used Valvoline MaxLife or Castrol Import ATF in these cars, and are they really suitable replacements for the Toyota T-IV?

I'm fairly new to the Lexus/Toyota game (aside from two Tacomas with over 100K miles each) so I wanted to get some thoughts about these non-OEM fluids. I have used both of these in several Honda vehicles with great success.

PFB

best and safest to stick to the OE Lexus/Toyota fluid. Why take a chance?

crwys

You can get 12 Quarts for around $70 ($73 at the time of this post) of the OE fluid on Amazon
This is what I use.

I looked up the Valvoline MaxLife on Walmart and you are pretty much paying the same price. (71.48 for 12 Quarts)
Prices are always changing, I'm sure you know, may be cheaper in your area but all in all, its pretty much the same price.

The Castrol Transmax is a little cheaper at $60 for 12 Quarts but I've never heard of anyone using this.

nsghtbrwry

A vote here for the MaxLife, it works great in all the transmissions I use it in. Hell, it's really all I use in everything I have except Chrysler products.

Oro

With an unknown history and poor appearance you would be smart to establish a good baseline going forward. Drop the plan and clean it out, inspect the wire mesh screen (don't change it), then swap in 11 qts of new fluid via your cooler lines. Here's that proceedure:

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

W/o a paper mesh filter to catch contaminants, these rely on the fluid to hold it in suspension. If neglected, it drops out into the pan. Clean fluid will load back up immediately if you just d/f. If this is outside your comfort zone, do 3 drain/fills in 5 to 10k miles at least.

Maxlife is a good fluid, but thinner than spec. It works OK in our 02 but not fantastic; it's also too thin in my DexIII spec'd Gm transmission and creates too-hard shifts. I'm switching to Castrol Transmax High Mileage at the next service in a few k miles. All of Castrol's AT products are called "Transmax" so look for the green gallon bottle "high Mileage" type. AAP has it on the shelf at a good price; I bought some there for about $17/gallon recently. It's got a add. package to meet T-IV needs per castrol, is widely available and fairly priced. it's 8.0cst at 100C, so a tad thicker than DexIII/T-IV (T-IV is slightly modified DexIII), but totally suitable to drain/fill applications and tailored for HM vehicles. It's very hard to find a T-IV compatible fluid with an HM add. pack. and synthetic for older vehicles. MaxLife meets all those except the fact it's much thinner than T-IV and isn't always the smoothest shifting because of that.

It's not a bad idea to add a little solvent additive to the AT before the change when you have a suspect history. Seafoam, MMO, or something can really help to clean some varnish off solenoid bodies and other critical areas that you can then flush or drain away (I like Seafoam - just use the regular type and no need for the Transtune flavor). I have had multiple successes with this over the years when buying or taking over maintenance on an HM vehicle. You should do that and a fluid swap on your PS system, too. Use the the same ATF you put in the tranny, then drain/fill them at the same time. Replacing PS pumps and rebuilding steering racks is a pain you can avoid with good (and cheap, easy) maintenance presuming it's not too far gone already.

speedkar9

The 01 ES transmission has had flaky reliability, so I'd treat it carefully.
With that much mileage, it would be safer to perform successive drain and fills instead of flushing everything out at once, which could cause slipping.

Here's my video on how that's done, including the filter change:

BassLA

Thanks for all the inputs! I was planning on only doing a drain and fill for the next few oil changes and will try the Castrol Transmax high mileage.

Now to tackle the dreaded Bank 2 knock sensor.

Oro

Replacing bad fluid with good fluid will not cause slippage. If anything, it will reduce the chance of it because the solenoid commands will be communicated more quickly through a correct viscosity fluid via the valve body.

Using the wrong fluid, or an existing electro/mechanical problem will cause that. It's very much akin to changing motor oil - do you want to just drain 1/3 of your oil at a time and put clean in with the old oil? It's certainly better than doing nothing, but it has its drawbacks.

For most shade tree mechanics who lack experience or confidence, doing successive d/f's instead of a proper swap has the advantage of being easier and less intimidating. But it is more time consuming, expensive, and less effective. That's the trade off, nothing else.

PFB

Hi Oro,
I will respectfully disagree with you. The reason not to do a transmission flush, is that by changing ALL of the transmission oil all at once, and replacing it with new oil, can damage the transmission. The reason being is that all of the cleaning agents in the new oil, may loosen some of the varnish and other contaminants that have accumulated, and that are probably not doing any harm, since they basically just cling to the transmission components and don't float around. Changing ALL of the oil will loosen those contaminants into the very narrow oil, passages and could block them. A month or so later, there goes your transmission.

It much much better and safer to drain the oil and to repeat the procedure every 15K miles or so. draining gets out about ⅓ of the oil. This is a good thing. Not a bad thing. And never ever should one do a flush.

Oro

I appreciate this is common wisdom on internet forums, but it's just not how it really works. The new fluid does not contain "cleaning agents." Rather, it has dispersants to keep contaminants in suspension (forming micelles, just like detergent). These aren't cleaning, and don't clean - same as motor oil. Taking the scenario you describe further, let's say some varnish is solubilized. And that's where it is - in suspension. It's not going to suddenly all conglomerate somewhere and form a blockage spontaneously.

I've never seen an amount of new fluid reduce any varnish. A solvent is needed for that (see above). I've taken apart, rebuilt and serviced a lot of transmissions over the years, and these issues don't pan out the way the speculation says. Transmissions are subjected to a not unreasonable amount of heat, but no where near the heat and toxic environments like an engine. People attribute too much of what goes on in motor oil to ATF. It doesn't get subjected to the same level of heat, oxidation, contamination, and reactions as motor oil.

These points apply to normally working, sealed transmissions. There are going to be examples where the case has had contamination and beyond salvage without a rebuild/serious repair. Switching fluid might, in one in a million cases, speed failure slightly faster than multiple drain/fills, but it doesn't change the inevitable. On a fully functioning transmission, it's just a less perfect method.

speedkar9

Another point is that friction material from the worn clutches maybe suspended in the fluid. This maybe enough to allow the transmission to work without slippage. However when you've taken that away with fresh fluid, the tranny may begin to slip. This is more likely on worn higher mileage tranny's. If your vehicle has low miles, then flushing is fine.

PFB

Oro,

Doing a flush is similar to playing Russian Roulette.

Why play it?

Chocolate

Too many horror stories after transmission flushes. I am in the drain and fill camp.

https://www.google.com/search?q=transmission+problems+after+flush&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Oro

I know this is a common theme widely subscribed to, but friction material does not stay suspended in the fluid. It doesn't.

It's just too heavy. It will end up sitting in the bottom of the pan. This is basic chemistry. Which is why you should ALWAYS drop the pan on a "new" purchase of a high mileage vehicle. Doing a drain and fill with all that (potential, not a given) material in the pan or screen is in fact the real Russian Roulette. And, look, friction material in a working transmission just doesn't randomly flake off. It take abuse or neglect. You have to drive it pretty low on fluid, or be towing very hot with worn fluid, to get that to happen. How many ES300s get used that way?

That is not to say there aren't blown U140E transmission out there. There are, but that was a characteristic of the bad design. Despite the millions of miles accrued, how many blown U151E transmission are there? Having done a lot of work and been a mod at ToyotaNation, I can't recall any.

These things are not so fragile as internet myth makes them out to be. People who say "I had my transmission flushed and it blew 2k later" are usually people who went to get a tranny flush on a failing transmission. And it was too late. You have to allow for selection bias. It's what drives bad myths in the automotive world. Reading automotive forums and not being able to filter out the selection bias will drive you crazy.

If you have an HM vehicle that works correctly, your best path is to drop the pan, clean it, flush the transmission with 12 quarts of clean fluid and go from there. If you have an HM vehicle with a misbehaving transmission, I can't say that's the best course.

If you feel putting clean fluid into a good working HM transmission is a bad idea, I'd love to hear what you've seen that made you say that based on the pan drops and rebuilds you've done. Disclosure: I've only had to rebuild GM and Ford transmissions; no Aisin I've owned failed with the care I've advocated, up to 300k miles (none I know ever failed, that's just as far as I've observed). And I've never been foolish enough to own a ZF or other European automatic.

crwys

Do you have any references to support that?

I disagree, I think people would first say "hey my transmission is slipping, will a flush fix it " rather than just doing a flush and then saying their transmission failed randomly. That doesn't make any sense. They aren't going to waste money without getting advice first, at least I would think.
Also doing more research shows posts of people reporting Lexus flat out refusing to do a transmission flush or drain and fill. Wonder why? (Slightly sarcastic, but mostly serious)