I am going to get my ATF... flushed (!?!)

[mattyt1991]

The saga goes on.

Basically even within this forum there are loads of people saying, don't change, change, never flush, I flushed and it was great...

So I have spoken to Devon Gearbox Centre who come well reviewed and spoken to the owner a few times. He recommends a flush and complete oil change of the transmission. He said issues can occur when using cheap machines to flush with but they use a £3000 machine rather than a £300 one (am I being incredibly gullible?!). He says they have flushed thousands of "sealed" transmissions with no issue (although admits not done a lot of Lexus transmissions).  He is going to use a genuine lexus filter and the recommended fluid.

Not entirely sure why I am posting this as I think I am just going to go for it. To put my mind at ease I would love to hear from people that have had transmissions flushed and it has been fine! For reference the car is a IS250 from 2008 with 86,000 miles on it. It has no issues with shifting at the moment at all. I think I will be fine... but I am nervous!

I will certainly report back with the results... jeeezz

P.S. please don't advise unless based on actual experience! The internet is full of that!

[rich1068]

4 hours ago, mattyt1991 said:

For reference the car is a IS250 from 2008 with 86,000 miles on it. It has no issues with shifting at the moment at all.

I just wouldn't bother. Buy some expensive wax and make it shiny instead.

[jaaniic]

When are you doing the flush and how much will they charge for that? I'm curious about results 🙂

Mine is 2008 as well with 101k miles, bought it used but don't think anybody did anything with the gearbox before. It shifts fine, but sometimes when I need to quickly accelerate, it takes 1-2 seconds to downshift, and it feels like I'm just sitting there waiting with pressed gas pedal. Would that be considered as normal behaviour? 

 

[Mr Vlad]

I'd be interested in hearing how much your flush and refill will cost and how it affects gear shifts and what differences you notice. 

[mattyt1991]

It is going to be costing £300, that includes a new transmission filter from Lexus, and using proper Toyota WS ATF. I realise this is a bit steep maybe but I bought the car with a budget in mind for things I wanted to do and so I have budgeted for it. Lexus price for an oil and filter change was £440 but I do not think they would be changing all the oil, just replacing what falls out on a drain, I think, don’t know for sure. 

The guy who is doing it has said basically it is more like a fluid exchange than a flush, new fluid goes in as the old stuff leaves. Like for like. 

I am getting it done on Monday, so will let you guys know the results. There is pretty much not a problem with shifting at the moment apart from perhaps it is a bit notchy when cold and a bit slow to respond. Getting it done as a bit of prevention and for my own peace of mind really... I know it is a lot money for that but whatever floats your boat eh?!

[Alfalfa]

On 6/24/2020 at 5:33 PM, mattyt1991 said:

The saga goes on.

Basically even within this forum there are loads of people saying, don't change, change, never flush, I flushed and it was great...

So I have spoken to Devon Gearbox Centre who come well reviewed and spoken to the owner a few times. He recommends a flush and complete oil change of the transmission. He said issues can occur when using cheap machines to flush with but they use a £3000 machine rather than a £300 one (am I being incredibly gullible?!). He says they have flushed thousands of "sealed" transmissions with no issue (although admits not done a lot of Lexus transmissions).  He is going to use a genuine lexus filter and the recommended fluid.

Not entirely sure why I am posting this as I think I am just going to go for it. To put my mind at ease I would love to hear from people that have had transmissions flushed and it has been fine! For reference the car is a IS250 from 2008 with 86,000 miles on it. It has no issues with shifting at the moment at all. I think I will be fine... but I am nervous!

I will certainly report back with the results... jeeezz

P.S. please don't advise unless based on actual experience! The internet is full of that!

Have done it, the gearbox is much faster in  down Gearing, did the flush because off high milage, no problem with gearbox. Before i could drive uphill in low speed in a higher gear and the car start to ratle, no this is not posible since the gearbox will gear down and rise the rpm, wery recomended.

[Mr Vlad]

Wow Matty that price to me is very very reasonable. I'd appreciate if you ask that guy/garage if he can recommend a transmission specialist in the Manchester area or even Rochdale. 

[mattyt1991]

2 hours ago, Mr Vlad said:

Wow Matty that price to me is very very reasonable. I'd appreciate if you ask that guy/garage if he can recommend a transmission specialist in the Manchester area or even Rochdale. 

Haha well you might want to wait to see how good a job is done first but yeah sure I will ask. 

[mattyt1991]

Bit of an update. Couldn't get the job done today as when they looked at the pan the bracket and bolts are very corroded and the bloke doing the work thought he might snap things trying to get them off and then not be able to put everything back. So he is ordering bolts and gasket before he attempts the job. Will put the price up a bit but pretty sure I am still going to go for it. 

Does make me worry a little about what else might be very corroded...

[noby76]

On 6/24/2020 at 4:33 PM, mattyt1991 said:

The saga goes on.

Basically even within this forum there are loads of people saying, don't change, change, never flush, I flushed and it was great...

So I have spoken to Devon Gearbox Centre who come well reviewed and spoken to the owner a few times. He recommends a flush and complete oil change of the transmission. He said issues can occur when using cheap machines to flush with but they use a £3000 machine rather than a £300 one (am I being incredibly gullible?!). He says they have flushed thousands of "sealed" transmissions with no issue (although admits not done a lot of Lexus transmissions).  He is going to use a genuine lexus filter and the recommended fluid.

Not entirely sure why I am posting this as I think I am just going to go for it. To put my mind at ease I would love to hear from people that have had transmissions flushed and it has been fine! For reference the car is a IS250 from 2008 with 86,000 miles on it. It has no issues with shifting at the moment at all. I think I will be fine... but I am nervous!

I will certainly report back with the results... jeeezz

P.S. please don't advise unless based on actual experience! The internet is full of that!

I have owned 3 Lexus's including my current one of which I usually put around 13,000 miles per year on average and have never done a full flush on any of them. i usually do a drain and refill every 30,000 miles on them and they all shift and drive fine with no issues. if a drain and refill still does the job and transmission still shifts smoothly why pay extra for a full flush?? i can understand if a flush brings extra benefit over a drain and refill but my current GS has been drained and refilled and i still cant tell when the car shifts up or shifts down gears. its still smooth..

[Mr Vlad]

A spanner in the works coming up and I apologise for the swearing I'm about to say. Ford Mondeo titanium x sport  mk4/mk4.5 ecoboost. That car runs the Aisin auto gearbox. Not sure if exactly the same as the one in the is250 but nonetheless. That gearbox oil and filter Must be changed every 37.5k miles or 3 years (which ever the sooner). 

Mind you in the Ford All the oil comes out. Its an expensive job. £350 it cost me when I had one.

Just thought I'd put this in. Food for thought maybe.

[mattyt1991]

So the price to drop the pan and do the filter is now just a bit high, and I am worried about other corroded bits braking. Plan at the moment is just to exchange the fluid without dropping the pan and changing the filter. My question is, would the oil change without the filter change still be worth doing? After all Lexus wouldn’t advise changing the filter at all. 

[Herbie]

I don't see the point of changing any fluids but not the associated filters.

The clue is in the name - they 'filter' out any crud and stop it from getting to places where it could do harm. There may well be a time when the filter gets so full of crud that it can no longer do its job and you can bet your bottom dollar that recovering from that will be much more expensive.

Even if I live to be a hundred I'll never be able to afford a brand new car so all my cars, from the day I passed my test in June 1975, have been secondhand ones. As soon as I take ownership of a 'new to me' car I change all fluids and filters and then I know where I'm starting from. It may or may not be overkill but it keeps me happy.

Having said that, I didn't do it when I bought this RX, but it did only have about 30k on the clock and full Lexus history so I made an exception this time.

[mattyt1991]

4 minutes ago, Herbie said:

I don't see the point of changing any fluids but not the associated filters.

The clue is in the name - they 'filter' out any crud and stop it from getting to places where it could do harm. There may well be a time when the filter gets so full of crud that it can no longer do its job and you can bet your bottom dollar that recovering from that will be much more expensive.

Even if I live to be a hundred I'll never be able to afford a brand new car so all my cars, from the day I passed my test in June 1975, have been secondhand ones. As soon as I take ownership of a 'new to me' car I change all fluids and filters and then I know where I'm starting from. It may or may not be overkill but it keeps me happy.

Having said that, I didn't do it when I bought this RX, but it did only have about 30k on the clock and full Lexus history so I made an exception this time.

Well in this case it is because the bolts and holding the pan on are very corroded and will likely snap. So to do the filter will mean more labour, and need to buy bolts and gaskets from Lexus. Difference is £180 vs £440. Is there no benefit from doing the oil change on its own then?

[Herbie]

14 minutes ago, mattyt1991 said:

Difference is £180 vs £440. Is there no benefit from doing the oil change on its own then?

And how much to replace the transmission if that filter lets metal filings into places where they shouldn't get to?

OK, yes, there will be a benefit to changing the fluid alone and yes, I'm talking extreme, worst-case scenario, but is it worth the risk? I'd say not, but of course, that's only my personal opinion.

And I can see that the filter and gaskets may have to come from Lexus (I had to go to Lexus for my RX300 filter and gasket) but you should be able to get nuts and bolts from any engineering or fixings suppliers.

[mattyt1991]

8 minutes ago, Herbie said:

And how much to replace the transmission if that filter lets metal filings into places where they shouldn't get to?

OK, yes, there will be a benefit to changing the fluid alone and yes, I'm talking extreme, worst-case scenario, but is it worth the risk? I'd say not, but of course, that's only my personal opinion.

And I can see that the filter and gaskets may have to come from Lexus (I had to go to Lexus for my RX300 filter and gasket) but you should be able to get nuts and bolts from any engineering or fixings suppliers.

I definitely get that and usually the way I think as well. But seeing as there is some corrosion down there the worse thing would be if they take the exhaust down to get where they need to and then something breaks due to rust when they do that. Plus I paid £3k for this car and it is shifting just fine right now. The transmission guy has actually advised I spend less and just do the oil change. It’s what he does on most BMWs and Land Rovers he services without issue.

[rich1068]

Sorry to do this again Matthew.

On 6/24/2020 at 4:33 PM, mattyt1991 said:

For reference the car is a IS250 from 2008 with 86,000 miles on it. It has no issues with shifting at the moment at all.

 

6 hours ago, mattyt1991 said:

Plus I paid £3k for this car and it is shifting just fine right now.

 

[mattyt1991]

Oil exchanged today. All seems to be shifting smoothly, whew! Whether or not it was a waste of money... guess I will never know. I feel a bit happier now that there is new oil in it. No surprise seeing as the oil is 12 years old but quite a big difference:

@Mr Vladi am sorry they didn’t know any good places that far up country!

 

[Mr Vlad]

Thanks for asking Matty. Wow a bottle of guiness and one of raspberryade. Personally speaking it looks like you went down the right road to get the trans fluid changed. So was it a full change or partial? So how much did it end up costing?

[mattyt1991]

31 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

Thanks for asking Matty. Wow a bottle of guiness and one of raspberryade. Personally speaking it looks like you went down the right road to get the trans fluid changed. So was it a full change or partial? So how much did it end up costing?

It was a full change, 7.9L of Toyota WS ATF

 

Ended up costing £205. I got the price a bit wrong before, it would have been £360 for the full change plus filter. In an ideal world I would have changed the filter too but given the corrosion and potential for other things to brake during the job I think I am happy with what I have had done.

[m4rkw]

On 6/24/2020 at 4:33 PM, mattyt1991 said:

 

So I have spoken to Devon Gearbox Centre who come well reviewed and spoken to the owner a few times. He recommends a flush and complete oil change of the transmission. He said issues can occur when using cheap machines to flush with but they use a £3000 machine rather than a £300 one (am I being incredibly gullible?!). He says they have flushed thousands of "sealed" transmissions with no issue (although admits not done a lot of Lexus transmissions).  He is going to use a genuine lexus filter and the recommended fluid.

 

I'd want to know exactly how they're doing the flush, from what I've heard the usual process is they attach to the cooler lines and cycle the fluid in and out through that with the transmission running. A lot of the clean fluid going in comes straight back out the other side, so you end up replacing far less fluid than a normal drain/fill would, but I'd be interested to know if they're doing something different. I'd also want to know how they could ensure that there wasn't any fluid of another type left in the machine before the process was started.

[Alfalfa]

35 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

I'd want to know exactly how they're doing the flush, from what I've heard the usual process is they attach to the cooler lines and cycle the fluid in and out through that with the transmission running. A lot of the clean fluid going in comes straight back out the other side, so you end up replacing far less fluid than a normal drain/fill would, but I'd be interested to know if they're doing something different. I'd also want to know how they could ensure that there wasn't any fluid of another type left in the machine before the process was started.

They plug to lines to the gearbox.