OK. I'm going to ask for your guy's expertise. I did about an hour of reading on these cars. My brother owns a 2002 Camry V4 automatic with 155K miles. We were discussing our "old" cars and I asked him about transmission fluid. He knew really nothing except it never needing changing per the manual (and printed on the dip stick)....and that his mechanic took care of that kind of stuff. He trusts him to do the right thing.
He's had the car for a long time yet has no knowledge of trans fluid being changed, never mind how often. It could factory fill. What I came up with is that 30K drain and refills are pretty popular and make sense. 100K-150K full flushes, filter (rock catcher) might be in order. I think 3 successive drain and refills (3.5 qts?) make sense over the next 12 months. Fluid choices seem to be OEM T IV, Mobil 3309, Valv ML, Castrol Import ATF, Mobil 1, Amsoil ATF, Redline D4, etc. This is a Dex3/Mercon/Mercon V type trans right? There's some sort of differential using the same trans fluid. That sounds strange to me. Is it a transaxle of sorts? Pan drain and refills seem very easy as this has a 10mm plug.
Am I missing anything? Other words of advice? He intends to keep the car for as long as it runs well. I'm not a fan of 155K miles on factory fluid...or even on 2 OCI's so far. I read some old Bitog threads on the these trans. It wasn't like there was a single fluid of choice other than sticking with factory T IV at $9/qt. Nothing fancy here - just what will work and makes great sense. I don't want to be part of a 10 qt flush only to have his trans fail a month later. We all know the saying: "no good deed goes unpunished."
He's had the car for a long time yet has no knowledge of trans fluid being changed, never mind how often. It could factory fill. What I came up with is that 30K drain and refills are pretty popular and make sense. 100K-150K full flushes, filter (rock catcher) might be in order. I think 3 successive drain and refills (3.5 qts?) make sense over the next 12 months. Fluid choices seem to be OEM T IV, Mobil 3309, Valv ML, Castrol Import ATF, Mobil 1, Amsoil ATF, Redline D4, etc. This is a Dex3/Mercon/Mercon V type trans right? There's some sort of differential using the same trans fluid. That sounds strange to me. Is it a transaxle of sorts? Pan drain and refills seem very easy as this has a 10mm plug.
Am I missing anything? Other words of advice? He intends to keep the car for as long as it runs well. I'm not a fan of 155K miles on factory fluid...or even on 2 OCI's so far. I read some old Bitog threads on the these trans. It wasn't like there was a single fluid of choice other than sticking with factory T IV at $9/qt. Nothing fancy here - just what will work and makes great sense. I don't want to be part of a 10 qt flush only to have his trans fail a month later. We all know the saying: "no good deed goes unpunished."