Transmission flush, brake bleeding and oil change

[lorne]

OK ... I picked the brains of the manager at Toyota today and got an appointment for some service. ¥¥¥¥¥ after decades of self-reliance, I don't like paying out the money. But the estimate looked reasonable, and I will not be lying in my driveway in pools of oil blah blah. And next time around I'll being doing the maintenance and knowing what I'm doing.

Now, not to get too far off topic ... some news. On the AWD (they badge as 4WD) the transfer case uses the same fluid as the transmission. The fluid is shared. This is despite an apparent contradiction on the AT's dipstick. I questioned the manager sharply about this, but he insisted this is the case.

The NCP95-AHPNK does not have an AT filter. Now Toyota (the NETZ division) says yer good to go after a drain for 50K. (So much for the "lifetime" claim so commonly bandied about!) This particular trans was drained at 144K Kms. Today at 166K Kms, I showed them the colour of the ATF. They were rather surprised because 5 Litres came out the last time it was drained 22K Kms ago. And the whole thing holds only 6.5 Litres.

So, they agreed with my theory that the car rental company (a previous owner) cared little about maintenance (duh). There must be some crud stored up in the casing. So it was decided by me, the manager and the mechanic to drop the pan, dump everything and clean the magnets.

Another mystery was solved: the viscous coupling for the AWD is in the rear diff — something that was being wondered about in a thread from some years ago.

These cars are a bit of a mystery in places outside of Japan. I hope these tidbits help fill in a gap or two.

06YarisRS: you should be OK with drains cuz I'm sure you have that rather large filter, and you say your ATF is clear.

— Lorne