XB2 transmission slipping at 30,000 miles
 

My wife tells me a couple of days ago that here recently her Xb has been shifting hard sometimes. She says she can sometimes feel a thud when it shifts but she never hears anything. So I take it for a drive and of course, I feel nothing.

Today however I take it for a drive after it has been sitting overnight in our driveway. Right off the bat I see that the transmission is slipping on the 3rd to 4th shift. RPMs rise about 500 rpm while it's shifting instead of just going down like it does in all the other gears. But, as the motor warms up, the slipping gets less and less until by the time the motor is up to operating temp it is not slipping at all.

The CEL is not on, and there are no codes being triggered.


So I go in today to the Toyota/Scion dealer to get the oil changed and I talk to a service advisor. He tells me it's normal and he's surprised it hasn't done it since it was new. He said the trucks are worse than the cars are due to the extra weight. He told me to take it home and let it sit overnight. Tomorrow morning start it up and let it get up to operating temp before I drive it, then drive it and see if it's still slipping. If it slips then bring it back.



I know for a fact that this HAS NOT been happening since day 1 since I drive the car at least once a week. I also know that transmission problems don't fix themselves and a slipping transmission will only get worse.


So, is this a common problem like the service advisor says it is or is he just feeding me a line of BS?

No offence, but here we go again. I work at an independant vehicle service shop. It is a well known fact that modern transmissions have VERY SMALL tolerances compaired to older pre 96 vehicles. The bottom line is this.....find a shop that can FLUSH the transmission for you. The BG process uses 16 quarts to flush the transmission. Since it only holds 8-10 qts, the system really gets cleaned out and the chemicals used in the BG process really wake up the transmission.

Pull the transmission fluid dip stick. Check the color of the fluid. It starts out life as a clear red fluid. Judge for yourself. My guess is that the fluid is between brown & black. Like engine oil, it has to be changed too. The problem with the service guy at Toyota is that they DO NOT train service people at dealerships. We just hired a Toyota service advisor and he is dumb as a rock! We are having to start him from scratch to teach him about real vehicle maint, service & repair.

My Suburban slipped so bad I was sure it needed a transmission, flush fixed it. Wifes 08 Civic had hard shifts and black fluid at 32k, flush fixed it. I can't begin to tell you how many times a transmission fluid flush has "fixed" a transmission. Trust me. And just because someone says "I never heard of that", doesn't make it any less true. Ask a certified vehicle tech, not some guy that has no clue about our industry and it's modern advances.

Now you are going to see lots of people reply and tell you that you don't have to flush it, but you can drain & fill it or drain & fill it several times. Problem is that this does nothing to "CLEAN" the inside of the torque converter or the valve body. But a BG transmission fluid flush will do exactly that. It is the only correct way to do it. Anyone that tells you to drop the pan and change the filter is just behind the times and useing old techniques on modern vehicles. Save your self the hassle and do it right the first time, get it fully flushed.

Think of it this way.... If you have a bath tub full of really dirty bath water and drained say a 1/4 of the water out and added fresh clean water to it to bring the level back to where it started. What condition would the bath water be in then? Clean? I don't think so. But that is exactly what a drain & fill will do for you. A flush on the other hand will use the transmission own pump to move the old fluid out and the new fluid in and will get all of the fluid out of the torque converter & valve body where all the build up is. I hope you get it done very soon because the longer you wait, the worse it will be. The dealer can also deny warranty coverage if you do not MAINTAIN the fluids that protect the system in question. We see this all the time so don't think just because it has less that 36k on it they have to fix it. They can do whatever they want to now.

Let us know what ends up happening and GOOD LUCK.

The fluid is nice and red (not dark in the least bit), it is at a good level on the dip stick, and it does not smell burnt at all.

See if a drain and refill solves the problem. At 30k, its time for one any way.

The service advisor told me that this transmission requires a scan tool in order to cycle the pump in the transmission when you change it so that you get all the old fluid out. He told me it usually runs almost $400 and takes several hours.

I know the old transmissions were easy to do, but I have no idea about these new ones that are 100% computer controlled.

If you had 100k with the stock fluid I could see you needing that. With only 30K on the fluid it doesnt and if you continue with same interval (ever 30k drain and fill) I dont think youll need it at any point.

Take it in and tell them its broken, and you don't want no BS. And don't leave until they agree to fix it. Shouldn't be doing that.

Agree with buickid, it's a warranty issue at 30K. BUT! Scan tool not needed. Takes less than an hour and we charge less than $200. Still believe the dealer?:gun: Give me a break! AAG always pushes for drain & fills.:cool:

i will watch from here. it will all just break down into an arguement filled with opinions. Please let us know what the end result is. Good luck.

Mine has slipped going into 3rd since it was new DEPENDING ON THE RPM'S WHEN IT SHIFTS...and it has over 65k on it now. If the rpm's are over 3k it won't slip going to 3rd, but under that it slips.

If the fluid is still clear red, its probably still good. I don't believe "lifetime" ATF any more than the next guy, but it should still last longer than 30,000...
I think you just have a bum transmission.

Find another dealer.

X 2

That is not normal.... Might have to leave it overnight to let them duplicate the issue on a cold start. If you do get the transmission flushed don't let them use anything other than the Toyota WS fluid.

GL and let us know how this turns out!

What's so great about WS? My tranny feels much better since switching from WS to M1 ATF. It not only shifts more firmly, the TQ locks up better too. OTOH, if you like the way the stock tranny slips and slides into gear, low viscosity WS is the ticket.

Nothing really, It's ok fluid, I still wish they used the good 'ole T-IV fluid :biggrin:. It wasn't as sensitive as WS.

My reasoning behind this is warranty related. Say you changed out the fluid with non-factory or Toyota approved fluid.... and you're still having shifting issues, they could deny your warranty claim if they figured out it's not WS in the tranny. The chances of this happening is really low.... i've only seen this happen 2 times in 5 yrs while working at a dealer. 3-4gear shift flare when cold isn't normal. Your service advisor is full of you know what!

Yeah, unfortunately I'll run WS until at least 60k miles is up. I will be having them change it at 30k though.

I suppose WS is adequate ATF. I just don't like the trend towards lower viscosity engine/tranny lubricants for their reduced drag at the expense of wear protection. I prefer the T-IV/DexIII ATF viscosity level and 5W30 motor oils vs the WS/DexVI and 0W20 oils.

From what Ive been told, WS is a good synthetic, just not for 100k miles. I still laugh when I think about telling someone to change fluids at 100k on a part thats warrantied for 60k.

UPDATE!!!!!!!!



Recently I was able to duplicate the transmission slipping when there was a good amount of weight in the car. Either a car full of groceries (where you have to have the back seats folded down to fit it all in) or with 4 people in the car. I was also noticing that at 35 mph on a level road, the rpms would go from 1500 rpm to 800 rpm and back. This happened on ANY level ground and it happened EVERY time at 35 mph. It was more noticeable if I set the cruise control.


So I went to my local dealer and scheduled an appointment with the lead tech to ride with me.

On the test drive with the lead tech, the transmission never slipped. However, it did do it's weird little thing at 35 mph several times. So I dropped it off with the dealer on a Tuesday.

The dealer tried a TSB (they never told me which one) to no avail. So the dealer contacted Toyota on Friday and Toyota told them to send in an ECM snap shot of what the car was doing.

Fast forward a week and a half to today and I go to the dealership to see what the status is. Well, Toyota told the dealership to replace the transmission!! It is now replaced but my service advisor said that they are not happy with how the car is doing and they need to keep it for a bit longer. He told me that the computer needs to relearn everything and that can sometimes take a while. I work with small busses and I know that the drive by wire systems can take a bit of time to relearn after the battery has been disconnected. I am not 100% sure if that's what the problem is but I did see my wife's Xb with her old transmission sitting next to it, so I know they aren't lying to me about that.

Ive just started seeing something very similar.

On a road I drive quite often, the rpm's jump. The road is 40mph, and I usually set the cruise around 47, and it seems like when the car is kinda coasting, it'll drop several hundred rpm, enough to where you feel the decrease in speed, then it'll quickly get back in the gas. It used to not do it, and it's quite annoying. I dont notice it any other time. I need to check out 35 mph on the way home, gonna make some folks mad :D

That is identical to what I was experiencing, just at a different speed.