2013 Highlander transmission fluid change

[JimR]

2013 Highlander (124,000 km) U151F transmission filter.

Regarding aftermarket filters, specifically the WIX 58010 ordered from Rockauto.

 

I wanted to relay my experience with this filter change and would be interested to know if others have had it too.

 

There is something wrong with the design or filter media on this filter. It caused my transmission to malfunction and I had to replace the old strainer. The Toyota dealer informs me that these strainers are there for the life of the vehicle and they don’t even appear on their parts diagrams. When I put the original strainer back on, the transmission behaved normally. No missed shifts, flares or cutting out. Before with the WIX filter the car wouldn’t go and I had to stop to let the fluid 'catch up' to the demand. The filter was starving the pump of fluid. 

Rockauto won't give me a refund and just repeats warranty replacement policies.  I think they should also investigate these items and remove them from their catalog for that vehicle (and any other Toyotas they apply to that use strainers) so others don’t have my experience. I’m hoping that no long term damage was caused by this and I will let you know if it has.  I only drove the car around the block a few times when it was acting up.  Canadian Tire (Parts Source) sells a King-o-Matic filter that looks exactly like the WIX unit (same hard filter media) that I was thinking of replacing the WIX unit with, until I spoke to the dealer.  I took the original unit into the Toyota dealer and the parts man had a tech look at it and he confirmed it was the original lifetime strainer and that I should just put it back in.  Note too that several other suppliers here in the Ottawa area sell replacement filters and I suspect they are all the same.  They look like the original and fit the tranny properly but don't work.

I also erased the Transmission Control Module (TCM) memory when the WIX filter was installed and it had no effect on the shifting.  The transmission threw codes P0776 and P2714 when I tried to drive it which have disappeared with the original strainer back in.

All in all this was a very expensive lesson for a simple maintenance operation, three fluid changes, a new scanner purchase and a bad filter.  At least the tranny has pretty clean fluid at this point.