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The color of my AT fluid at 170k miles. Drain and Fill Lifetime fluid.
I finally went in and got a drain and fill done on the automatic transmission fluid after reading about it here and watching Scotty Kilmer on youtube laugh about how lifetime fluid means lifetime of the transmission and the warranty on the tranny is for 60,000 miles. I asked the guy if I could see the color of the old fluid. I expected it to be black and so did he. The car spent all but the last 18 months of it's life in Florida. Almost all of the service was done at the dealer and there is no record of a fluid change, not that they would with their lifetime fluid claims. It took 4 quarts of the Toyota ATF WS.
Is anyone surprised by this color? I was, pleasantly.
I did mine at 160k, I believe, it was darker a little bit. But even with that color, the fluid needs to be replaced gradually.
The mechanic suggested I could wait another 30k with the fluid looking like that, but I am still going to do at least one more drain and fill within the year. My mother, who owned the car since 2010 said there was never any mention of changing the ATF by the dealer.
I’ve changed Toyota WS fluid at 50,000 miles and it was black. Totally black. I’ve changed it on my LS460 at 70,000 miles and it was so black that I thought my tranny was junk...but it wasn’t, it’s just the dye in the WS...it doesn’t hold up.
But yes, I’m very surprised at the color of your fluid...thought it’d be much darker. It probably has been changed before - which is a great thing - because I prefer 50,000 mile changes in these cars...although I will say that these transmssions are great. They aren’t known for problems...they’re high quality and well built. You don’t see many Aisin 8 speed tranny failures on a Lexus.
I just did a drain and fill after 30k on the GS. The fluid was black but smelled like fresh fluid. The color of the fluid doesn't really matter with the WS but the smell of the fluid will tell you more. If it smells burnt then you know there's a problem on the horizon. This fluid is expensive so I would not drain fluid every oil change. You should move the shift lever through ALL the gears especially the lower gears which probably don't get much use.
"WS" is just a designator for the label, but I have seen elsewhere people posting "WS JWS 3309", which is T-IV fluid according to JWS 3309 spec. JWS 3324 is lower viscosity fluid.
I may be wrong, but it's my understanding that true "WS" fluid is JWS 3324 or better.
"WS" is just a designator for the label, but I have seen elsewhere people posting "WS JWS 3309", which is T-IV fluid according to JWS 3309 spec. JWS 3324 is lower viscosity fluid.
I may be wrong, but it's my understanding that true "WS" fluid is JWS 3324 or better.
As in Toyota WS fluid. I believe those numbers are designated as the Mobile 1 equivalent. The T-IV is not relevant to the 460 since it is for earlier LS models.
As in Toyota WS fluid. I believe those numbers are designated as the Mobile 1 equivalent. The T-IV is not relevant to the 460 since it is for earlier LS models.
It has been a few years but I remember the WS referring to “world standard” somewhere on the bottle.
04-06-21, 10:33 PM
The color of my AT fluid at 170k miles. Drain and Fill Lifetime fluid.
