zx10guy - appreciate the feedback. I don't know where you're located, but dealers most certainly do not shy away from recommending/stating you need costly over maintenance, from my experience. Other than for warranty work, I will not go to them for this reason.
I also do not believe Toyota is leaving this out to lower the maintenance cost because, at the 50-60k-100k interval, its in the noise in terms of the overall maintenance cost rollup. I find it interesting that you choose to perform maintenance that isn't recommended by Toyota for the tranny, but then 2X exceed their recommendation on oil changes. I got that you're thinking the highway miles are not as hard on the oil. But, I just am not following that logic. Oil changes are cheap, relatively speaking (especially DIY). If I saw a car that had documented 10k oil changes when the manufacturer called for 5k, I would probably pass on a used purchase, all other things being equal.
I am not saying your wrong and I am right. 86k miles anecdotally on a Toyota historically is nothing so fluid change vs no fluid change at these miles should be meaningless. Again, historically speaking as far as the reputation that one can put miles on a Toyota with no problems. 175k on a 2007 Matrix, no tranny service and ran like a top with untold problem free miles. I am expecting the same out of this car and will be highly disappointed if that is not the case. I may consider a tranny service for some insurance, at some point, depending on the cost. Thanks for the feedback. This forum is not very active, so its hard to get a sense of what kind of numbers were talking about here. 3 or 4 people posting a problem isn't really telling of anything.
It's not really in the noise when you look at a full tranny service costing around $500 to 600 which was what my dealer quoted me. How many of you would think that's trivial? And it is 100% about giving the potential buyer that owning a particular car with less maintenance requirements is a big selling point. Ducati had done this as again how many of you all wouldn't choke on a $1400 bill for routine service....yes that's how much it costs. As I said, I asked my Toyota dealer and had to press them on the trans service. If the dealer was in it solely to have a money grab as many anti-dealership people insinuate, they wouldn't have hesitated in selling me this service. Same with my BMW dealership. I asked them about doing a full service on my DCT trans, and they said the trans doesn't need it.
As to your example about your Matrix, you're comparing two different types of transmissions. The transmission in the Matrix is a fully geared transmission. The ones in our C-HRs are CVTs which means one metal belt that is spun around by a variable movement pulley system. How your car moves with this system is purely by friction where the belt sits on the pulley. So you tell me whether you would trust fluid in this trans after significant number of miles. This is outside of the servo/pump systems that are used to apply hydraulic pressure to make the pulleys shift in and out on axis to simulate gearing changes. And we're not even talking about fluid break down and wear over time.
You need to read your warranty and maintenance guide again concerning what Toyota recommends as oil change intervals for this car. Per this guide....you only change the engine oil and filter at 5k intervals if one of the following conditions apply:
1) Driving on dirt road or dusty roads
2) Driving while towing, using a car-top carrier, or heavy vehicle loading
3) Repeated trips of less than five miles in temperatures below 32 degrees F
4) Extensive idling and/or low speed driving for a long distance such as police, taxi, or door to door delivery use
Do any of those apply to you? It doesn't for me. Those conditions qualify per Toyota for a 5k mile oil/filter change interval. Everything else is listed for 10k miles. Also, as part of Toyota Care where you get free oil changes for the first two years of ownership, try going in to the dealer at 5k miles to get your free oil change. I tried and they pointed me to the maintenance guide. Oil technology has gotten so good lately that 10k mile oil changes are not outlandish. Yes, oil changes are cheap. I do my own maintenance work on pretty much all my vehicles: two cars, three motorcycles, whole house back up generator, and two lawn care engines. But I rather not spend money needlessly for no large additional benefit and it's also wasteful when it's not absolutely needed. Going by color of the oil is not a good indication of the quality of the oil. The only way to check on the quality of the oil is to send it off to a facility such as Blackstone to get an oil analysis. The one thing I did do outside of the norm was changing the oil in my C-HR around 600 to 1k miles on the odometer...forget the exact mileage. This was to ensure I got any metal particles out of the engine during the break in period. I've done this on all of my vehicles.
As to my anecdotal statement of my car exceeding 82k miles and not having a problem, yes, it is anecdotal. Just as those screaming about their trans failures. This forum is only a small sampling of all C-HR owners out there. So you can't draw clear conclusions as to the actual reliability of these trans. Also, those that are upset/angry/dissatisfied are the ones that will post up their displeasure more often than those that are happy or satisfied. I have asked point blank to those that have had transmission failures if they've done a trans fluid service. Not one has responded to date. Which I would have to assume the answer is no. There are two of us that have responded that we've had our trans service done. My accounting is so far the highest mileage vehicle with the trans fluid service done on here. Also as part of a relevancy, many of the reported trans failures are in the 50k through 70k miles window. My reporting of my mileage shows that I'm well beyond that window with no issues.
