Apologies on no pictures but figured explanation of the process is better than not posting.
We are original owners on a '12 Subaru Impreza 2.0 CVT. I intended to change the CVT fluid closer to 75k but deferred it to now at 99k miles on the clock.
The CVT has a lower, flat plan with a drain plug. I wanted to get more fluid out and clean the permanent metal filter, so I pulled the pan.
You should get the car up and level on four jack stands. There are channels on both sides of the underbody that I find work fine for placing jack stands.
First, you may want to be sure you can get the fill plug loose. It's a metric allen (10mm I believe) on the driver's side of the case, toward the back. Hard to miss.. about 8" up from the bottom.
Twelve bolts and a little prying and the pan is off. You'll get roughly 6 quarts out this way. A few bolts and a tug and you get the filter out. Turning it over a few times will drain fluid from the pickup. I ran some brakekleen through it and got it where I believe there was no material fluid left in there.
There is a shell of some kind that is bolted in above there that I wanted to get out to get more fluid out but once unbolted, I could not get it down around some linkage safely so I abandoned that.
You need to clean off the factory RTF off pan and trans case. There is one factory magnet on inside of pan to clean off.
My fluid was a little dirty but not too bad in my estimation.
RTV bead on the clean pan- you'll find instructions with a gasket making RTV (Permatex makes a transmisison pan specific one) generally say to hand tighten the pan up right after applying a bead, including around the bolt holes. Wait one hour and snug the bolts (I do snug, no torque wrench) Wait at least overnight before filling.
I got about 5 quarts in the fill hole before it began to dribble out. Put the plug back in. Start the car and warm it up & run the trans selector to D and R a few times. You are supposed to get the trans fluid to approx. 95-115 deg Farenheit. I estimated mine by an infrared gun on the pan. In approx. 70degree ambient temparatures this took around 10-15 minutes. Depending on how fast you get fluid in and how (I just squeeze the quart bottle with clear hose on a gear oil tip/top), you may need to wait a bit for the temperature to come back up.. but I just made sure I got to about 110 start and I found I stayed in the temp range in getting the last approx. 1.5 or so quarts in... once the car is properly warm, you are going to get 1.5-2.0 quarts in the fill hole before it dribbles out again. Get that fill plug pretty tight (much tighter than your pan bolts- it's big threads and has a copper crush washer.) YMV with reusing the copper washer.
I ended up doing it twice as I foolishly tried using an already opened blue RTV the first time. From doing it both times (though I didn't pull the filter on the redo), I estimate the process with pan pull take 6.75 quarts. I used Valvoline CVT.
I heard a few minor odd noises from the trans initially but I think the fluid was just getting fully circulated and/or maybe there is a bit of a computer relearning going on ? It performed fine and may possibly be a bit quieter.. the CVT trans has some inherent whining noises to it.
I'll drain plug change fluid every 50k from here.. I have the feeling this trans is not very stressed by the thunderous ~140hp NA 2.0l motor.
We are original owners on a '12 Subaru Impreza 2.0 CVT. I intended to change the CVT fluid closer to 75k but deferred it to now at 99k miles on the clock.
The CVT has a lower, flat plan with a drain plug. I wanted to get more fluid out and clean the permanent metal filter, so I pulled the pan.
You should get the car up and level on four jack stands. There are channels on both sides of the underbody that I find work fine for placing jack stands.
First, you may want to be sure you can get the fill plug loose. It's a metric allen (10mm I believe) on the driver's side of the case, toward the back. Hard to miss.. about 8" up from the bottom.
Twelve bolts and a little prying and the pan is off. You'll get roughly 6 quarts out this way. A few bolts and a tug and you get the filter out. Turning it over a few times will drain fluid from the pickup. I ran some brakekleen through it and got it where I believe there was no material fluid left in there.
There is a shell of some kind that is bolted in above there that I wanted to get out to get more fluid out but once unbolted, I could not get it down around some linkage safely so I abandoned that.
You need to clean off the factory RTF off pan and trans case. There is one factory magnet on inside of pan to clean off.
My fluid was a little dirty but not too bad in my estimation.
RTV bead on the clean pan- you'll find instructions with a gasket making RTV (Permatex makes a transmisison pan specific one) generally say to hand tighten the pan up right after applying a bead, including around the bolt holes. Wait one hour and snug the bolts (I do snug, no torque wrench) Wait at least overnight before filling.
I got about 5 quarts in the fill hole before it began to dribble out. Put the plug back in. Start the car and warm it up & run the trans selector to D and R a few times. You are supposed to get the trans fluid to approx. 95-115 deg Farenheit. I estimated mine by an infrared gun on the pan. In approx. 70degree ambient temparatures this took around 10-15 minutes. Depending on how fast you get fluid in and how (I just squeeze the quart bottle with clear hose on a gear oil tip/top), you may need to wait a bit for the temperature to come back up.. but I just made sure I got to about 110 start and I found I stayed in the temp range in getting the last approx. 1.5 or so quarts in... once the car is properly warm, you are going to get 1.5-2.0 quarts in the fill hole before it dribbles out again. Get that fill plug pretty tight (much tighter than your pan bolts- it's big threads and has a copper crush washer.) YMV with reusing the copper washer.
I ended up doing it twice as I foolishly tried using an already opened blue RTV the first time. From doing it both times (though I didn't pull the filter on the redo), I estimate the process with pan pull take 6.75 quarts. I used Valvoline CVT.
I heard a few minor odd noises from the trans initially but I think the fluid was just getting fully circulated and/or maybe there is a bit of a computer relearning going on ? It performed fine and may possibly be a bit quieter.. the CVT trans has some inherent whining noises to it.
I'll drain plug change fluid every 50k from here.. I have the feeling this trans is not very stressed by the thunderous ~140hp NA 2.0l motor.
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