I just need reassurance that I'm going after the right drain plug. It's a 10mm hex on the bottom of the tranny. My old 2012 Prius C - that would be the tranny coolant plug - so I stopped and decided to check with you guys first. I don't have any Toyota coolant on hand. See attach picture, down arrow is drain plug - up arrow is fill plug (next to passenger side drive shaft). I'll post pictures of ATF, currently @ ~32K. Thanks in advance...
Hard to judge from your pic; here's the ID from the Repair Manual (full instruction attached). Seems very close to the split-line between transaxle and engine.
Yep, that's it - my picture is 180 degrees from your picture. and thanks for the torque specs. too. It looks like the coolant change will be really easy on this car too. There's two stop-cocks on the drivers side radiator. Tracing the hoses, looks like the lower is Transmission coolant, upper engine coolant.
Here's the result of the ATF change on a 2021 Prime w/32K miles. I had similar results with my 2012 Prius C @ 25K mile ATF change. Left is what came out, right is what was left over from the 4 quarts. I used a 3 foot hose and filled from above, so some additional lost in the hose.
Yep, good job....I was pleasantly surprised at Toyota engineers for making this maintenance so easy....not much harder than an oil change! (For me, the hardest part was getting those darn drain plugs to break free...someone needs to tell the factory installers the torque is 37 ft/lbs not 400!!!!)
It was about $75 USD for the 4 quarts. I probably should've gone the Amazon or Ebay route. Neighbor is a big Toyota fan, and was shocked at the ATF color at only 32k miles.
Last time I bought up here Toyota ATF WS was around $10~11 CDN per liter. But that was a few years back, and I know Toyota motor oil has really gone up.
My 2008 Corolla had a dipstick so it was super easy to see the condition of the transmission fluid....bugs me how we don't have that luxury now. (Easier to fill it, too.) My co-worker has a BMW and it doesn't even have a dipstick to check the engine oil....how dumb is that??? When I changed my wifes 2017 Prius transmission fluid at the 5-year point, it only had 29,000 miles and wasn't very dirty. I've heard of some folks changing it out every 2-years but transmission guys say that's actually not good because it does need a little bit of friction in there to help everything move around better. (I just do every 5-years or 50,000 miles, whichever comes first.)
My 2008 Corolla had a dipstick so it was super easy to see the condition of the transmission fluid....bugs me how we don't have that luxury now. (Easier to fill it, too.) My co-worker has a BMW and it doesn't even have a dipstick to check the engine oil....how dumb is that??? When I changed my wifes 2017 Prius transmission fluid at the 5-year point, it only had 29,000 miles and wasn't very dirty. I've heard of some folks changing it out every 2-years but transmission guys say that's actually not good because it does need a little bit of friction in there to help everything move around better. (I just do every 5-years or 50,000 miles, whichever comes first.)
It's an ATF, and the pre-gen4 Prii don't have an auxiliary cooler. So the fluid gets 'burnt'. But it isn't an automatic transmission. The fluid doesn't have to work as an hydraulic fluid. It just lubricates. It getting burnt likely has no effect on its lubricating properties. The addition of the cooler in the gen4 seems to be more for towing that is done in other markets. Toyota should have used a mnaul transmission fluid for the transaxle, but the ATF was on hand and low viscosity for efficiency.
Let us know how it looks @ the 5 year or 50K mile point. After the first drain on my old 2012, AFT was significantly cleaner @ the 60K mile change. I'm pretty sure I could've pushed it out to 80K-100K miles, to get it to the current color of my 32K mile change out.
Ah, something I am due for our 20PP too ? I am familiar with the normal -partial flush-refill and repeat (2-3 times) : it this what we are doing here ? any DIY linky? TIA,
A single drain gets maybe 90%, no need for multiple drain/fill procedure. I wouldn't do that with a conventional automatic either; just periodically drain/fill, at a more frequent interval.The only time I'd do multiple drains and fills is in a contamination case, say you accidentally poured motor oil in (I did this one time, with a previous car...). DIY linky attached.
Thank you Mendel... I will gather fluid and get it going ... My pass Ody (312k, still going) which needs -regular- tranny flush- ... for some reason, I totally forget about the 20PP EV-
There's a link in my signature regarding third gen transaxle fluid change, primarily DIY tips, and it's mostly relevant for the fourth gen I'd think. One thing I noticed with the fourth gen Repair Manual instruction, they really go on about keeping it sealed as much as possible, comparing to third gen. Maybe a nervous engineer. One thing I glean from that, plus a Toyota document on ATF WS, is that the fluid used should be from freshly opened bottles. I wouldn't go nuts, just drain it, get the new in, recycle any left over.
