Wanted to poll fellow members fr their thoughts on our transmissions being sealed from the factory and really no way to change the fluid?

Do you feel or anticipate any problems could arise from our cars being unable to do routine maintence. Every mechanical part has a duty cycle, but w proper lubrication, it will last longer.

Thoughts members???

 

umm...yes the transmission can get flushed.

by "sealed" they mean that the average joe cant do a transmission flush on their own. i work at lexus and its a crazy amount of work to do but its not what you mean by 'sealed from the factory and really no way to change the fluid'. you cant do it on your own regardless because it involves a computer

 

Not really, no, since there are no external hoses going to/from it. There's no place to connect traditional flushing hardware.



Really? Please tell us how.

Because we've already had like a 10 page thread on the topci, including posts directly from TIS, that state you can not flush the system and you can not replace a significant amount of the fluid.

So we'd love to hear the technical details of how this is possible in any of the 2IS automatics. Please be as detailed and specific as possible.

 

does it say in the manual that the fluid will last the life of the car? If so I honestly wouldnt bother messing with it. How long your car lasts depends on your driving style and how well you take car of it. I had a VW Jetta which in the manual stated that the trasmission fluid will last the life of the car. I put 180k on it and never changed it. The car has been sold earlier this year and is still running.

 

And I understand that, but man that makes me nervous if the tranny goes out.

I am use to manual trannys where you can put redline in and as long as you are not an idiot drver, should never have to worry about with the exception of the clutch!

 

I too work at Lexus, and have mistakenly drained the trans fluid on a 2IS. Now at our dealership, we sell a drain/fill. No pressure flushing or backflushing. I personally like this better because you're not blasting away any clutch or band material that may potentially clog up lines or cause other problems.

Is it an easy task? Absolutely not. I can try and get the TIS instructions on Monday, but it's pretty time consuming. First, you need to get the fluid into the trans. There's a fill plug much like on manual trans' on the left side of the case. You fill this up with the lower drain plug of the pan in, and the upper plug of the pan out. Once fluid starts coming out of the upper plug hole, stop filling. Let the draining settle down and put the plug back in. Also put the fill hole plug in. Then you have to start the car, and let it get to a certain temperature. You know the car is at that temp with some pin jumping at the DLC, and the "D" shift symbol will start blinking. Then you have to open the upper drain plug on the pan again, and see if fluid drains out. If it does, let it drain and settle. If it doesn't, you need to add more. You have to do all this while the "D" light is blinking. If it goes solid at any point during the process, the trans is too hot and you have to wait for it to cool back down.

That's just from what I can remember, like I said I'll get some literature later. Being a tech, this was HUGE mistake - seeing as a drain/fill only pays .5 hrs. This process, with all the right computers and lifts, took physically about an hour. Lesson learned.

On my personal cars I drain/fill every 30k. Never had a problem of any sort. Oh and if I remember correctly, there is a lifespan Toyota's W/S fluid. I believe it's 100k. I'll check on that too.

 

The TIS directions were posted a couple years ago.

here ya go:
https://www.clublexus.com/forums/2446051-post44.html

Those are the directions for refilling it if it lost fluid for some reason (a leak, or having to swap parts out).

It was not how to "change" the fluid though because you can't change much of the fluid that way.

Roughly 10-15% of the total even if you drop the pan entirely, let alone only open the bottom plug.... (1.3-1.5 qts for that)

Hence changing even 1/4 of the total fluid, let alone all of it, is physically impossible short of taking the entire transmission apart (valve body, torque converter, etc).

The "change" the dealer sells is only .5 hours because they're not really changing the fluid, they're draining and refilling maybe 1-1.5 quarts tops. Which isn't really a change and as you say, a large waste of time.

 

Weird those directions look much different from the ones I've seen. But yes, it is pretty pointless if you're only capturing a quarter of the fluid. All you can hope to do is dilute it...