Ab175

So, I picked up my car from Duggy's garage yesterday and noticed that the mileage on the car was exactly the same as when the car went in. They only did one drain and fill at this service so I know that it might not be a big deal but just to be sure, the car does not need to be drained in any way after being driven for the first time like through the overflow plug or anything right? As in to get any excess fluid out or anything? I know these transmissions are really finicky with putting in the fluid so I am just asking for peace of mind. Appreciate any responses.

Romanova

You can do the whole process without actually driving the vehicle, it just has to be on and running during the service.

How was Duggy's? Was the price fair?

ninja250

No driving needed. you press the brake, put in D and cycle through all gears. This way the fluid moves in the tranny. Stop, drain, refill, repeat 3 times.

Ab175

The place was great, lots of cool Toyotas in the yard so I had fun looking at some of those. The price was definitely steep at 252$ for one drain and fill but they definitely know what they are doing when it comes to Toyota and Lexus products so I trust them. They were flexible with me with the scheduling and were pretty helpful with all my questions. I am planning on getting them to install an Ironman 4x4 bumper on my GX in the next few days. I will let you know what I think then. Thanks for the responses guys, gave me some peace of mind.

LokiGx

I did a drain and refill on my 11 with 122k miles, was able to drain out 3.25 qts of the old fluid.

A little background about the truck, I bought it 3 months ago with 118k miles and the previous owner said he didn't get the transmission fluid replaced whereas other maintenance was upto date as per the lexus schedule. He did say that the dealership didn't advise a tranny oil change despite him asking at 100k service. Upon looking up service history on Lexus owners all the engine oil changes every 5k, brake flushes and other usual maintenance at a timely manner and no mention of transmission fluid change. I was little concerned to get the tranmission fluid changed, so called up my local lexus dealer to get an estimate and what they would do, they said it would cost around $470, when they will hook up the transmission lines to a machine and exchange the fluid, I asked if they would drop the pan and change the filter, they said they wouldn't. So I just bailed out.

Thanks to Club lexus members and moderators, ton of information and helped me to do the drain and refill.

• Put the truck on 4 rhino 12k ramps - i'm 200lb and need some good room to wiggle underneath the truck
• I started up, and rolled through all gears P-R-N-D to circulate all the fluid and shut it down.
• I do admit that finding that fill bolt was like a treasure hunt, it was neatly hiding away. I only had a 24mm deep socket , so it wouldn't fit in there with a ratchet. Made a quick trip to HF to get shallow sockets.
• Loosened the fill bolt, it was at the right torque. Then loosed the overfill plug with a 5mm and drain bolt with a 14mm, these were not at all tight(15ft lbs).
• by looking the bolts faces, there was absolutely no wear indicating that the fluid was never drains or filled and it had the same fluid for 120K, I got more curious to see what the color and condition was
• I have a Homedepot 5qt measuring bucket and put it under the drain bolt and drained out the old fluid. It was dark but still has reddish tint. see the pic below on the color
• 
  
• Was able to get ~3.25qts out from the drain bolt.
  
• Put in a new crush washer on the drain bolt and torqued it with 20ft lbs, that was the lowest setting on my Torque wrench.
• put in a new crush washer to the overfill plug and just snugged it few rotations, will torque after draining out the overfill later.
• Pumped in 4 qts of Toyota WS using a hand pump, Oh boy! that was a pain, I bought a quart bottle hand pump from amazon and it wont screw to the toyota quart bottle, had to use both hands to pump the fluid in, but was able to get it in. Used a new rubber washer on the fill bolt and torqued it to 40ft lbs
  
• Started up the engine and rowed through all the gears, P-R-N-D few times waiting few seconds in each gear and put it back in P. Went below the truck, and using a infrared thermometer waited till it reached 115F at the pan surface and opened the over fill plug, a little over a quart drained out. This means that the truck was overfilled with 0.5 quart from the factory (3.25qt drained initially, I filled up 4 qts and over fill drained out little over 1qt)
• 
• Torqued up the over fill bolt to 20ft lbs,
• Took it for a drive around the block and found no issues or slippage, all gears shifting fine (smoother than before especially 1-2 and 2-3) and no leakages so far. I'm thinking of doing 3 more drain and refills every 5K miles while I do the oil change, not sure if this would hurt anything.

Romanova

Again, investing in the Motive Powerfiller is a good option if you intend to keep your GX long term. It really does make the refiling portion go a lot faster.

Acrad

I agree... nice to be able to dump the 3-4 quarts in the Motive and just refill with little effort.

ninja250

Great tool, used recently on 3 cars, all the transmissions, differentials, etc. No struggle under the car with spills, tipped bottles and other minor disasters.

A tip - get a quart or two of denaturated alcohol from home depot, great to clean the device.

LokiGx

Thanks @Romanova That's a good option. will get one for my next drain and fill.

KawiLex

You still have to manually pump the motive. I prefer to get my pump on under the GX. <grunts>

nuclearn8

I see what you did there... lol
having done both methods, the motive does make it substantially easier and I'll never do a transmission fluid change without it going forward.

cltchmoney

I've just purchased a 2014 GX460 with 130k km (80k miles) and the car is fantastic. I had transmission fluid on my to-do list by my indy as part of the baseline maintenance. What I'm seeing in this thread is back and forth between multiple drain and fills vs flushes vs don't touch it if there are no problems (I don't). Right now I'm contemplating on waiting until 100k miles to change any of these fluids to decide where it should be done (on my driveway, indy or stealership?). For those doing drain and fills, are you using OEM toyota WS or diluting it with a better product? I'm going to lexus tomorrow for the two recalls so will enquire about the cost of a transmission service. My car does have the transmission cooler option so not sure if that affects anything, but was never used to tow (no hitch) and was effectively driven by a "soccer mom" before me. Thanks for the input anyway.

WRD4chano

my two cents:
the dealership will most likely tell you that it doesnt need to be changed (big lie)!

use the OEM fluid (toyota WS)
when changing the fluid, drop the pan. it'll get more fluid out. two of these should be good.

cltchmoney

Wanted to update everyone as I chose to go a different route with brand. I ended up servicing my TC, diff and trans this week. I've had excellent experience with motul in my other cars both in the motor and transmission and went with them again. I also get Motul ATF for cheaper than OEM toyota WS even though in my opinion it is a superior product. All the fluids were drained with Motul (did an oil change as well with their 8100 and brake fluid with their DOT 5.1) so now I am running all synthetic oils in the car outside of the power steering. I did 3 trans drains and fills as suggested with the car running on the lift to get it up to temp again. I've driven approx 200km since and so far so good. One thing that always irked me was the jolt if you shifted into reverse while still rolling forward when you back into a parking spot. Right away, I have noticed this to be much smoother. Outside of that, the car drives exactly the same as it did prior to service - as expected. Thanks for all the help on this thread! I'm expecting many more enjoyable miles in my GX.

LexusGXFan

There is nothing special with Toyota OEM ATF

What fluid did you use for the TC?