Idle vibration went away with a transmission service

[m4rkw]

I've had a bit of vibration at idle with the car in drive or reverse. Yesterday I took it in for a transmission service and since the fluid change the vibration is dramatically reduced. So now I'm wondering what I can infer from this.. dirty/clogged filter? The fluid only had 20k miles on it, was changed 2.5 years ago. Conventional wisdom seems to be that the fluid can go 50k miles before it needs changing. I think I'm going to change mine more frequently now.

 

[ColinBarber]

Are you sure they didn't disconnect the Battery or reset the ECU when doing this - I cannot imagine why they would do this, unless they know the vehicle will drive differently after a reset.

How was the fluid changed last time? If only the pan was drained then that would have only changed 1/3 of the total fluid within the transmission and so changing again after only 20k miles would make a difference.

[m4rkw]

1 hour ago, ColinBarber said:

Are you sure they didn't disconnect the battery or reset the ECU when doing this - I cannot imagine why they would do this, unless they know the vehicle will drive differently after a reset.

How was the fluid changed last time? If only the pan was drained then that would have only changed 1/3 of the total fluid within the transmission and so changing again after only 20k miles would make a difference.

Both times it was done by Russell Birch at Toyotec who I am sure knows what he's doing. Maybe he reset adaptations before the test drive, not sure what the official procedure is. Both times it was a drain and fill, I'm wary of flushes after listening to Louis Altazan talk about them - http://www.agcoauto.com/content/news/p2_articleid/168.

Sounds like you're probably right on it simply being dirty fluid/debris left in there after the first service. I guess I'll start changing it at least every two years now, the vibration seems to have started after the two-year point so maybe that tells me something. I just hope that the vibration didn't damage anything! He test drove it afterwards and said it drives really nice anyway.