2006 Toyota Tundra automatic trans fluid re-fill

[Edmond]

One of the guys in my platoon has one of them and went to change his oil last week. He ended up draining the transmission fluid instead of the oil.

He was going to have it towed to the stealership but I told him I would help him.

There are 3 plugs: drain, fill and check.

From the searching I've done, I take the plug off the check and fill it through the fill plug until fluid comes out. We did that and it ran fine for a few days. Then he said that when he put it into drive, it would hesitate before going forward.

I'm not really that familiar with automatic transmissions. Should we warm the vehicle up all the way and check the fluid level with the vehicle running? I'm thinking that it might be low on fluid.

He put generic O'Reilly fluid in there that according to the bottle is compatible with the Toyota automatic trans.

Any suggestions?

 

[hate2work]

I think by 06 they were using the WS fluid, which has a lower viscosity than the T-IV fluid. Also there is a specific sequence and method of changing the ATF in those trucks, it involves getting the transmission up to a certain temp, etc.

I don't think the generic Oreiley fluid is compatible with WS fluid. If you search the Toyota forums, you'll find a few tutorials on changing out that fluid. I would get some Toyota WS fluid, or the equivalent Amsoil or Red Line product and change it out. I don't think any damage has been done, but I would not wait to get the correct fluid in there.

Here is a google search for you...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&a...amp;safe=images

 

[RiverWolf]

Agree with H2W. WS is not the same as T-IV, which is probably what the O'Reilly's ATF was compatible with. Toyota put out a warning specifically stating that WS and T-IV are not compatible...necessary because there's nothing obviously different about the trans from year to year except which fluid was used as FF.

Tundrasolutions is the place to go for the full info. From rough memory, for the "sealed" trans, you first intentionally overfill the fluid. Then you need to jumper two pins in the ODB connector followed by some gymnastics with the gear shifter to get into "ATF temp diagnostics". This will cause the ATF Temp light to come on in a certain pattern to indicate the trans is at the proper temp to remove the check plug to drain off the appropriate amount of overfill. I think the temp can also be checked with the appropriate scan tool instead of using the jumper/gear shift technique, but it costs more.

If you poke around, tundrasolutions also has a write-up with pictures to do a cooler line ATF exchange, which sounds like might be a good idea for your buddy at this point. Incredibly easy if he has the aux trans cooler, no lifting or crawling under required. If you go this route, be aware that some Tundras have an ATF heater that will bypass the aux cooler if the fluid's not warm enough...a likely condition when doing a fluid swap in the garage.

-Brent