I have about 5k miles on my 04 TL. I was thinking about flushing the automatic transmission with Red Line or Amsoil synthetics. I did a search, but haven't seen anyone with an 04 TL do it to theirs yet. What's your thoughts on the flush at that mileage and how many qts do you think it will take to do the job? I have a 97 4Runner V6 and it took 16qts.

 

I posted on this - search on "The RR Journals".

Red Line does not make a compatible fluid - Amsoil does. There is a difference between a drain/refill and a flush - a flush requires some sort of active equipment to pull all the fluid, including the torque converter. I think you mean a drain and refill.

I think it is a fine idea (read my post). Total capacity of the TL is only 7 quarts, and only 3 get replaced during a drain/refill. So two D/R's will get you to about 25% syn - but one is certainly a good start. On this car, frequent changes are a good idea - I plan to do it yearly.

 

Thanks for the quick response. I didn't check The RR Journals. I'll check it out.

I was referring to a completed flush. Suck out all the old/bad stuff and in with the new fluid.

 

Are you talking about using something like a BG Products machine - or a Bosch? If not, then how do you expect to get all the fluid out? The only cars I ever saw with a tap to get the tq convereter fluid were old Mercedes. As I said, draining only removes 3 qts.

 

I'm not sure which machine it is. I'm not doing the job myself. I have a friend who's a mechanic at a local Toyota dealership. I told him I wanted to flush the tranny on my 4Runner and he told me he needed 16qts for a complete flush my model 4Runner. I paid for the transmission fluid and the labor was free so I wasn't complaining. I should ask him if the machine takes out the fluid in the torque converter.

 

Sounds like he is going to do a drain/refill 5 times, which will pretty much replace all the fluid. This seems excessive to me, as you will get benefits from just doing the drain and refill, but if you don't mind the $$'s, have at it.