Without going into the whole story, I'll get right to it...
I have an 04 tacoma 2wd automatic 3.4L with 94k miles. Unknowingly, I drove the truck about 20-30 miles 4 quarts low of transmission fluid(long story).

During the drive, I had no idea it was low and it did show some signs of a problems which actually led to me checking the fluid after driving. It was slipping then grabbing semi-harshly into gear from a stop mostly.

Anyway, I have added the correct amount of trans fluid and everything is cool now, but Im completely paranoid and anal that I messed something up. It doesn't seem to shift like it use either...Smooth and perfect like before.

What should I do to make sure the trans is 100%? What kind of service or additives if any should I add? Any precautionary(sp?) measures?


thanks.

 

Are you sure it's not shifting like befor, everytime I sort of screw something up I get paranoid and start hearing/feeling all sorts of things wrong. Left my oil fill cap loose and it fell off, right after I discovered it I started hearing all sorts of odd noises in the motor, that were not really there..LOL

I recently dropped the pan, replaced the screen and did a flush. It made a big difference in mine, I was not haveing any trouble but it shifts much smoother now. Since you ran it low, you might want to clean everything out and start with fresh fluid. I don't recomend any additives, at best they will only mask a problem.

Doug

PS: Don't suppose you want to tell us how you managed to run it 4 quarts low. Forget to refill it during a drain&Fill???

 

Yep,best thing you can do is do a flush with quality fluid and reset the ecu by pulling EFI fuse for a miniute...then drive it for a few days...then see how it is.

 

thats true, I don't think I reset the ecu.
Thanks for the replies.

How it ran low...well at an attempt to make a long story short, I was changing the t-belt. I removed the radiator as part of my procedure which included the trans cooler lines to and from the radiator. The dummy move comes in when timed everything up. I wanted to start the engine to make sure it sounded smooth and in time before I bolted everything back on. No big deal for a few seconds. I knew I would spill coolant left in the engine everywhere, but I wasn't concerned about that and I planned on changing all the coolant anyway.
After starting and stopping, I realized I made a huge mess on the floor with fluid. More of a dummy move comes in where I am completely used to GREEN coolant(but obviously new I had red), so when I saw all the pinkish fluid on the ground...I thought, wow thats a lot of coolant.
Put everything back togethor, drove it. It finally was showing slippage signs and I thought I did something wrong with the reinstall of the belt or related.

Just turns out that I'm an idiot an spilled 4 quarts of trans fluid on the ground right in front of my face and didn't realize it thinking it was coolant since it was a similar color.
the trans fluid was just changed in the truck not too long before, so the nasty old trans fluid smell wasn't there. there.