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I would do the three successive drain-and-fills, then see how the vehicle performs for a week or two. With mostly fresh ATF, you may not need to drop the pan.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Thanks. I'm doing a drain and fill tomorrow morning and one Wednesday morning with the car sitting overnight. You're probably right about the just doing three drain and fills, but I already bought a replacement transmission filter.....we'll see how motivated I am. lol
One thing I forgot to mention..... The drain plug was REALLY on there. When I couldn't remove it with my socket wrench, I went and got my breaker bar. The 6mm hex bit snapped off and I had to get some pliers to remove the broken piece off. I went to harbor freight and bought an impact metric hex socket set. My 1/2 inch impact wrench STRUGGLED to loosen the drain plug. I couldn't believe it.
That is insane for the transmission drain plug. I think the torque is around 30 ft. Lbs. The interior overflow plug is installed just finger tight as it is plastic and very fragile. It must be what the factory did.
Skip the filter and see what the 3 drain and fills do. They will make much more difference than changing the filter.
Sorry about the tool failure on the 6mm hex drain plug. Toyota/Lexus should know that 6mm is way too small and therefore too weak for a drain plug bolt, especially when the guy before you (or robot at the factory) cranked it down like an idiot.
That is insane for the transmission drain plug. I think the torque is around 30 ft. Lbs. The interior overflow plug is installed just finger tight as it is plastic and very fragile. It must be what the factory did.
Skip the filter and see what the 3 drain and fills do. They will make much more difference than changing the filter.
I torqued it down to 30 ft lbs. Doing a lot of work on my cars and building a performance car, nothing surprises me anymore. If I were to guess, it was slightly overtorqued from the factory and close to 13 years of never having been open just sort of made it that much more stubborn. Or maybe the dealership DID check it and torqued it back down with an impact. It drives me crazy seeing so many mechanics using an impact to torque everything down. Then again, I can't blame them. I'm under less time constraints from a corporation, customer, or boss. I can take an extra 30 seconds to tighten something the right way. Thank Gold I have an impact. I have never used it to tighten anything down, but I've had many a time where the breaker bar wasn't working.
Update:
As of very early this morning I've completed the third drain and fill. The fluid still looks pretty black, and while you can't see it that well in the photos, there's more red tint to it. I JUST got back home from work. Twenty mile test drive and 70 mile commute to and from work.
The good news-
I pretty much thought this was going to be a Hail Mary in terms of fixing the shudder. The fluid absolutely HAD to be changed. The car is obviously driving better to the point where I know it's not just a placebo effect or my imagination. While the shudder happened about 80% of the times during 2-3 and 3-4 shifts under light acceleration, I felt it three times the entire time in my Boston driving. It's happening much less often. Maybe more importantly, the shudder, which was on the mild side already, is barely noticeable. If I wasn't paying attention and purposefully waiting for it, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. I can absoultely 100% guarantee that it's significantly better, whatever problem it may have been. As a bonus, car seems to also be smoother and shift better under moderate acceleration, however that part might just be my imagination. Also, I'm going to finally give the lexus back to my sister and I can drive my car once again. lol
The bad news-
Well, it's still happening. Hopefully it will get better the more my sister drives it. I'm just flabbergasted as to how black the fluid still looks. I first drained 2.25 quarts the first time and accidentally overfilled it with 2.5 quarts. I drained 2.5 quarts and filled it with the same amount the following two times except for the last fill, where I only filled it with 2.25 quarts to make up for the overfill. If the source I found is correct about the capacity being 5.6 quarts and my math is correct, that means about 80% of that fluid right now is new. And I absolutely know that the fluid had mixed well between drain and fills. Otherwise, I wouldn't be draining black fluid the last two times.
Sealed transmission with lifetime fluid.....................................
So you decided not to do the level check procedure? Just the measured drain and fills?
I am. I just had too much clutter in my garage to use my quickjack until now and get the car nice and level. I'm hosting Thanksgiving at my place and I'll check it when my sister comes over. I just better finish replacing the supercharger belt on my car as I've got it up on the quickjack right now. I'm still up in the air if I'm going to bother replacing the filter. It's also an opportunity to drain a half quart more fluid than is possible with the drain plug alone. She picked up the car, ran some errands, and drove to her house today. She called me to tell me how much better it's driving. It didn't shudder once on her.
The difference in fluid capacity between the U660 varients is negligible.
Were you using Toyota WS ATF?
I went with Idemitsu fluid which I believe you recommended to me. It's working great. I was going to go with toyota, but I googled other people's experiences with Idemitsu and it seemed really popular and liked by the lexus and toyota crowd. And also, the drain and fill, drain and fill, drain and fill gets so so expensive, not to sound cheap. Toyota brand would've made it that much more expensive.
My 2013 Lexus rx350 f sport at 104k miles is experiencing what you experienced. Feeling transmission shudders when shifting from 2-3 and 3-4 at low speed around 25-30 mph (also in boston area). In my recollection, i never changed the fluid. Brought the car to a transmission repair shop to evaluate and they quoted me a 3k torque converter replacement. I have been asking around other shops and 2 of them recommended a flush and 1 said drain and fill a few times. Can’t decide which one to visit now. Would love to continue to hear about your update!
My 2013 Lexus rx350 f sport at 104k miles is experiencing what you experienced. Feeling transmission shudders when shifting from 2-3 and 3-4 at low speed around 25-30 mph (also in boston area). In my recollection, i never changed the fluid. Brought the car to a transmission repair shop to evaluate and they quoted me a 3k torque converter replacement. I have been asking around other shops and 2 of them recommended a flush and 1 said drain and fill a few times. Can’t decide which one to visit now. Would love to continue to hear about your update!
Drain and fill a few times in my opinion. Flushing sometimes has unintended consequences and this lexus and toyota guy, the carcarenut on youtube, doesn't recommend flushing for cars over 100k miles if you never did a change before. However, you're not much above that amount. The drain and fill has made a world of difference. I would put it at 80% resolved at least. It almost never shudders now and even when I felt it, it was so minor. Only thing is I used Idemitsu fluid recommended by another guy on this thread so I don't know how much of the difference came from replacing the old fluid with new vs. using a different brand fluid that happens to be synthetic.
I'm tempted to just do one final drain and replace the filter which I know is very unlikely to make any difference. However, the process of replacing the filter will give me the ability to get rid of another half quart or so of old fluid. I'm so close to getting rid of that shudder completely. I noticed a difference on each drain and fill with diminishing returns. Plus, if I remember correctly, the carcarenut says changing the filter isn't a bad idea if you never did a drain and fill for over 100k miles.
Drain and fill a few times in my opinion. Flushing sometimes has unintended consequences and this lexus and toyota guy, the carcarenut on youtube, doesn't recommend flushing for cars over 100k miles if you never did a change before. However, you're not much above that amount. The drain and fill has made a world of difference. I would put it at 80% resolved at least. It almost never shudders now and even when I felt it, it was so minor. Only thing is I used Idemitsu fluid recommended by another guy on this thread so I don't know how much of the difference came from replacing the old fluid with new vs. using a different brand fluid that happens to be synthetic.
I'm tempted to just do one final drain and replace the filter which I know is very unlikely to make any difference. However, the process of replacing the filter will give me the ability to get rid of another half quart or so of old fluid. I'm so close to getting rid of that shudder completely. I noticed a difference on each drain and fill with diminishing returns. Plus, if I remember correctly, the carcarenut says changing the filter isn't a bad idea if you never did a drain and fill for over 100k miles.
The two shops said 104k is still ok to flush and not considered high mileage, while the other one don’t recommend it… I honestly can’t decide and afraid a wrong decision is made and will make the situation worse. I was leaning towards a flush before finding this post, but now I feel like I will go for the drain and fill.
Do you happen to know any trustable/ good reputation transmission shop(s) in MA?
The two shops said 104k is still ok to flush and not considered high mileage, while the other one don’t recommend it… I honestly can’t decide and afraid a wrong decision is made and will make the situation worse. I was leaning towards a flush before finding this post, but now I feel like I will go for the drain and fill.
Do you happen to know any trustable/ good reputation transmission shop(s) in MA?
For a transmission flush and especially a drain and fill, you really don't need a specialized transmission shop. Any competent mechanic should be able to easily do that and not screw up. Heck, any decent weekend warrior is more than capable. It isn't the most technically challenging thing to do. I don't really know of any good mechanics or transmission shops in boston, I live about 30 miles north of boston and I do almost all maintenance and repairs myself. If you're willing to go to the lowell/nashua, nh area I can recommend a few.
11-14-22, 02:17 PM
