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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: November 13th, 2023

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  • Toyota shot themselves in the foot by marketing the sealed transmissions as having “lifetime fluid”. Fluid analysis has indicated that the cooling properties of the World Standard ATF break down after around 40,000 miles. They are banking on the fact that Aisin transmissions used in Toyota’s (still reliable overall, but comparatively the least reliable aspect of the powertrain) will in most cases outlive the cars themselves before they are written off as totaled by an insurance company or salvage titled over the years.

    The Toyota maintenance schedule doesn’t mention transmission servicing at all on most of their vehicles. However, the Lexus maintenance schedules recommend a fluid flush at 120k miles in the severe schedule for some of their cars with an identical engine/transmission (e.g. Lexus ES vs Camry). Meanwhile, both Lexus and Toyota dealerships will happily sell you a transmission flush regardless of the maintenance schedule. I’ve learned nobody really knows what’s best since they’ve omitted key maintenance info for marketing/metric purposes, so you’re best off flushing every 100k miles at most.


  • That light comes on every 5,000 miles regardless of anything else, it’s that simple. You should do:

    1. Tire rotation every 5,000 miles
    2. Oil change every 10,000 miles
    3. Swap the cabin air and engine air filters every 25,000 miles or as needed (easy DIY).
    4. Brake fluid flush at around 75,000 especially if it fails moisture test.
    5. Coolant flush at 100,000 miles and then every 50,000 after that at most.
    6. Transmission flush (lots of debate on this “lifetime” fluid) and spark plug change every 120,000 miles.

    Other than that just take care of the usual tires, brakes, battery, wipers, etc. as they wear down and you are good to go.