I am the 3rd owner of a 2008 Touring, and just crossed 150K miles. Although I have done all my own minor tuneups, I don't have the ramps/jacks to lift my car to get under it / level it. For convenience sake, I called around to get a price for changing the CVT fluid. I didn't want to go to the dealer because that would put the car out-of-action for a whole day. The first place I called was Big O Tires (formerly NTB) . They won't change the fluid, saying that the transmission is too old to replace with fresh, and damage might result. While I appreciated their brutal honesty, I can't help but be confused by this response. As a business that services thousands of cars a year, is this their actual experience with Prius' CVT? I'm not currently noting any CVT issues. I thought changing the fluid after 150K would a good idea based upon 1.) Don't know if the CVT fluid has ever been changed, and 2.) from the advice of other owners here in these Prius forums. Now I'm teetering on which direction to go.
They obviously have no idea how the powersplit device works. It isn't a CVT in the traditional sense because it has no drive belt or chain. There is nothing that can go wrong when changing the oil in a power split device if they use the right oil.
But....they are under no obligation to do something that they are not comfortable doing. And you should thank them for that. It's just too bad that they feel somehow obligated to make up some BS excuse.......instead of just saying "That is something that we don't do." If you really think it is THAT important to do, maybe you should bite the bullet and let the dealer DO it. Just maybe. And most dealers will do things like that while you wait, especially if you are the first appointment of the day.
lol... How many Big-O tire employees does it take to screw in a light bulb? Answer: Zero, because the light socket is so old a new lightbulb might damage the socket... It's really far more responsible to just get used to the darkness like the olden days...
It should not be over $100 at the dealership. It's a dead simple fluid drain-and-fill. Would take them under an hour, for sure. A few caveats: 1. Use Toyota ATF WS (4 quarts is sufficient, refill capacity will be somewhere between 3.5~4 quarts.) Use newly opened bottles only. (Up here the fluid was costing me $9.14 (CDN) per liter, fwiw. Through dealership parts department.) 2. Fill with the car level. When the fluid starts coming back out of the fill hole, the level is right. 3. Use clean apparatus to fill. I would not use a pump that's been used to transfer other fluids, to avoid contamination. I'd recommend a funnel with 3 foot hose (keep hose outside diameter to 5/8" or less) extension, from above, either new, or you know it's not been used for other fluids. 4. Replace both fill and drain washers. (Through dealership parts department, for they were around $3.50 (CDN) apiece, a bit of a rip-off...)
you're probably fortunate that they refused. take it somewhere without 'tires' or 'muffler' or 'lube' in the name
I believe MG2 is connected to the drive line with what Toyota calls a “chain”. You are correct that it’s not a CVT though. If BigO doesn’t want to do the job move on to someone else. All you need is to be able to lift the car up and drain it. You can refill it with a piece of hose and a funnel from above. A trained monkey could probably do it. Just remember to remove the fill plug first and get 4 quarts of the Toyota transmission fluid.
Maybe you should have asked instead for a Prius transaxle or automatic transmission fluid change, and avoided the 'CVT' moniker completely? This isn't like 'real' CVTs such as on Subarus. Do beware that it must be an approved fluid for Toyota hybrids. The wrong fluid, meant for common automatics, has been known to cause electrical leaks in the insulation on the MG wiring. This may be a risk that DT really doesn't want to deal with.
I've been training myself, but just don't have the jack stands in the number sufficient to raise and level the car high enough to work under it safely
Just buy some more stands. Then you will never have this problem again...with any of your vehicles, present and future.
Buy some 2x8’s and cut them to varying lengths. Like 4 ft, 3ft, 2ft. Then just drive up on them longest to shortest. That should give you enough height to get to the fill plug. undo that one first then the drain plug. I don’t remember if the fill plug is in the front or back of the transmission, if it’s in the front just put the full 4 quarts in. The .1 quart extra won’t hurt anything. If it’s in the back you might have to back down the ramp to finish then screw the cap on as best as you can then go back on the ramps and tighten it down. Personally my driveway has a slight slope so I can raise the front on my car enough to get under and the car is level.
Lots of ways to get the car raised and level. What I do is raise the front, put it on jackstands, then raise the rear, and put it on jackstands. I also like to push a section of tree trunk under: maybe 14" long by 14" diameter, under a main beam just behind the engine bay. Alternately, with just two jackstands: raise the front, put it on jackstands. Then raise the rear, and just leave the jack in place. But seriously: invest in a couple more jackstands. Alternate #2: run the front up on ramps, then raise the rear and put on jackstands. One thing: the scissor jack support points SUCK with jackstands. I don't have a good gen 2 underbody pic, but there are better support points under there. There's a couple of rails running lengthwise along the car underside, inboard a little: the front terminus of those rails is a good place for the front jackstands. For the rear, there's a couple of oblong slots in the car underbody, near the rear scissor jack support points. Have a look for those: they're typically in reinforced plate, intended for locking pins, used during shipping I think. They have rubber caps. That zone is a hump, heavy plate, and suitable for jack stand cradles.
I think dealer quoted me 1.5 hours (price gouging as usual) when I was buying fluid from them back in 2013... It was pretty simple and even though I only had front ramps and was unable to raise the car up level, it worked out pretty well. Only took a little bit longer than an oil change...
Of course trained monkeys don't make good mechanics... They're much better at high pressure sales pitch for overpriced brand new cars...
I like really nice and high clearance ... I use an extension on my jack. I raise my car high enough to put each wheel on a milk crate. It gives me all kinds of room.
I've used both the metal type and the heavy "plastic" type. I'm talking the industrial kind that people "borrow" from stores. The plastic ones actually seem to do a better job. I'm not aware of the GVW of an average Prius, but they held up all the cars of the '60's and '70's that I worked on back then. I got the idea from the guys at the junk-yard that I got parts from. They would sit cars on them to strip parts. It was a fast on-off using a forklift. We did it with the bottom up not the open top up.
I'd stick to safety stands. Plus I like the idea of thick/solid timber block under there too, at the end you're working, just in case. Something thicker than you. And have a cell phone.
