• 2017 Toyota Corolla Transmission Recall

I'm seriously considering a new 2018 Corolla. Like many, I'm concerned about these CVT Automatic Transmissions. Mostly the reliability and longevity of them. I plan to keep this car a very long time, and I've read these new CVT Transmissions can have problems once they get past the warranty. Does anyone know if this is this based on fact?Has anyone experienced any issues? And are you satisfied with the way the CVT operates? There appear to be literally millions of these things on the road.

Toyota's new CVT, which will also be found in the upcoming 2020 Corolla Sedan, is a totally new design for the company known best for its cars' reliability. The transmission uniquely consists of a.

So one can't help ask the question, just how bad can they be? Have one since October 2013. Smooth, efficient, zero problems. Close to 8 years worldwide for the specific unit in Corolla (5 years for NA) and no particular surge or trend in complaints (Consumer Reports, True Delta, JD Power) beside inevitable odd units from a man-made product. Which says something, since there are now 1.5 million of them on NA roads.Heavily discussed on many forums.

You have haters mentioning the lack of performance. True, if you floor the car, you may feel a slight delay.

Other associates the lack of constant up and down in revs with poor performance (drone or rubber band effect). Toyota addresses it with electronic fake shift points. Purely a marketing purpose. All in all the CVT is actually faster by the numbers (from a Corolla point of view) than the old 4AT (not to mention better mpg).There is also the stigma of poor engineering from some brands: GM-Fiat (metal debris in fluid), Ford-ZF (bad O-rings), Audi-Schaeffler (missing clutch), Honda (wrong fluid) and of course, Nissan (bad firmware for heat control). But those don’t apply to all CVTs, not even all CVTs from those brands. Actually, there have been CVTs in car for 60 years.

They are simple devices but require meticulous execution. Toyota-Aisin seems to be OK.The stigma is deep, though On forums you’ll see people blaming absolutely not transmission related issues on the fact that the car has a CVT. Or confusing it with the CVT in hybrids like Prius (totally different beast).

The never ending urban legend of “lifetime fluid” is also frightening for some. Actually, you won’t find it in Toyota’s manual. Rather the same schedule as other manuals or automatics trans: check at X interval and act appropriately (or change at X interval for severe usage).Long story short, I’m very satisfied of the CVT so far. Have one since October 2013. Smooth, efficient, zero problems.

Close to 8 years worldwide for the specific unit in Corolla (5 years for NA) and no particular surge or trend in complaints (Consumer Reports, True Delta, JD Power) beside inevitable odd units from a man-made product. Which says something, since there are now 1.5 million of them on NA roads.Heavily discussed on many forums. You have haters mentioning the lack of performance. True, if you floor the car, you may feel a slight delay. Other associates the lack of constant up and down in revs with poor performance (drone or rubber band effect).

Toyota addresses it with electronic fake shift points. Purely a marketing purpose. All in all the CVT is actually faster by the numbers (from a Corolla point of view) than the old 4AT (not to mention better mpg).There is also the stigma of poor engineering from some brands: GM-Fiat (metal debris in fluid), Ford-ZF (bad O-rings), Audi-Schaeffler (missing clutch), Honda (wrong fluid) and of course, Nissan (bad firmware for heat control). But those don’t apply to all CVTs, not even all CVTs from those brands. Actually, there have been CVTs in car for 60 years. They are simple devices but require meticulous execution.

Toyota-Aisin seems to be OK.The stigma is deep, though On forums you’ll see people blaming absolutely not transmission related issues on the fact that the car has a CVT. Or confusing it with the CVT in hybrids like Prius (totally different beast). The never ending urban legend of “lifetime fluid” is also frightening for some. Actually, you won’t find it in Toyota’s manual. Rather the same schedule as other manuals or automatics trans: check at X interval and act appropriately (or change at X interval for severe usage).Long story short, I’m very satisfied of the CVT so far.

I have to agree with Jolly. If I'm not mistaken Aisin's K313 unit in our Corollas has a cvt fluid heater which is supposed to help with getting that fluid to right operating temperatures since most wear to CVT or any mechanical devices requires to be warmed up on those cold days before you floor it.

There is a reason why a lot of high end sports cars like ferrari and some BMW Mpower will cap your rpms at 4k until engine and sub components have reached the right temperature.My impression of what some have reported is that if you look at the big picture it's practically a non-issue or no more than anything else. There are millions of 11th gen in the world, heck since I bought mine, four of my neighbors bough 11th gen corollas. Where I live in Chicago suburbs at least every 5th car is a Corolla and 3 of 5 various Toyotas from siennas to camrys. During my hourly commute, if I was not to exaggerate I probably see 100 or more corollas on my way to work every day, shoot probably more. They're everywhere. I personally haven't had a single issue with mine but the whole nissan, honda and other make/model brands initial issues raised a red flag as far as cvts go.

When you add a handful of users on this forum and even less on toyotanation.com, I've looked into this as much as I could and I'm not worried. My unit is butter smooth. The only unknown as Jolly mentioned is fluid drain/fill interval which no matter who you talk to says the same thing that it's lifetime.

I even wrote Toyota corp directly and requested to speak with an engineer regarding this query. They've came back with the same answer, check fluid level/leaks every 30k but other than that fluid is lifetime. I will make sure to try to change the fluid at around 55k before my warranty is up and give it some time to drive with the new fluid to make sure nothing's wrong before I'm passed warranty.

I wouldn't wait to get the fluid changed until 60k if you haven't purchased extended warranty. Change it before60k at around 50k or so and see how it is.Reply from Toyota:Response Via Email (Daniell T.) 06:47 AMDear Mr. XXXXThank you for taking time to contact Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.We appreciate the opportunity to address your inquiry regarding proper maintenance of your 2015 Toyota Corolla.According to the ( to view), there is no specific interval to change the transmission fluid.

However, the transmission should be inspected every 30,000 miles (or 36 months) for any leaks.Your email has been documented at our National Headquarters. If we can be of further assistance, please feel free toSincerely,Daniell T.Toyota Customer Experience Center. I'm starting to believe a large amount of complaints about CVT Transmissions have nothing to do with reliability. There are simply far too many of them out there, that if there was any type of serious reliability issues with them, it would have surfaced by now. There isn't, in spite of the fact most all of the compacts from the biggest manufacturers all use them, and have for years. There are literally millions of them on the road in this country alone.

Millions more throughout Continental Europe, where 4 cylinder compacts are even more popular than in this country, due to high fuel costs.And one thing people do with Toyota's is keep them, and rack up high mileage in the process. So if all these CVT Transmissions currently out there were so bad, and had serious reliability issues coupled with high failure rates, there would have been massive recalls with them. There hasn't been. I think what makes them so unpopular is they drive much differently. And in the process somewhat 'detune' the car, and turn off people who like, want, and expect performance in most everything they drive.

You have to accept these 4 cylinder compacts for what they are. Basic A to B transportation and grocery getters, and nothing more.

If you want 'excitement' in your driving, buy a performance car. Not a 4 cylinder compact with mag wheels.I just think people expect way too much from these vehicles. And because they don't deliver it, right away they want to blame and complain about the CVT as being part of the problem. At least that's my take. I base it on the fact I'm not hearing from people who tend to badmouth them, and give problems and failure as the reason why. They just don't like them. Which is fine.

But that in itself should not tarnish the reliability and dependability factor of them. That's the gist of it, although some modern 4 cylinders are quite performing. I always like to show the William-Renault experiment to people who say a CVT kills performance. It was dismissed by F1 for the advantage it gave to the car and, therefore, the cost for other teams to catch-up with the technology. One could also assume that F1 was afraid of the effect on the sound of the show. On the other hand, some were raving when DCTs went mass market (VW, Ford).

Performing they are, smooth they are not. So you then heard complaints about the 'roughness' of the drive. Nothing is perfect! When i had my focus titanium it was scary at times. But that was back in 2012 when they first put the DCT in the focus, i'm sure they got better but with 2 small kids at the time, i couldn't take the risk of losing my forward gears, like coming into a rotary or a on ramp to the highway, almost got ass ended so many times.

But the 40% it worked it was fun as fck. Launch control was a blast (foot on the brake and gas to the floor, the motor didnt rev up past 3500 and when you let the brake go it took off like a rocket). But the CVT in my two corolla's have had absolutely no issues with a combined 130k miles. And if there was one, there are many crashed ones in the junk yards for parts.lol i have no problem ramming through the gears on a on ramp and getting up to and past highway speeds by the end of the ramp. The paddle shifters are fun while cornering. And its so nice to down shift and get that little extra boost to pass cars. If your eyeballing a 2018 corolla, get it, get it fast and spend the extra few grand and get the xse with all the bells and whistles.

Unless your down south then the heated seats would suck.lol. 0-90 is pretty fast 90 to 110 takes abit more time.

A few dislikes but i could count on one hand with a few missing fingers. But you can always grandma it and never switch to manual mode. But using the manual mode makes me really miss true manuals.

Overall i have had a blast with the cvt in the corollas. I have had my used 2015 corolla with a CVT for 2 weeks now and I love the CVT transmission! I'm planning to change the CVT fluid at 50k miles or less (20k miles on odometer currently). My local Toyota dealership recommended that it be changed at 60k miles but strongly recommended that I not do it myself because you have to have their special machine that measures the temperature which adjusts for volume taken in and out etc. But I figure, if I change it while it's cold, and the replacement fluid is cold, and I measure carefully what I take out and put the same amount back in, there is no way to get it wrong.So my brother's Subaru Cross trek has a CVT with 110k miles. We decided to try it with his.

There is a drain plug on the bottom and a fill plug on the side (same as the corolla CVT). It was easy to drain, easy to measure and mostly easy to refill using a cheap little hand transfer pump ($15 at autozone). The only glitch was that we couldn't get the same volume in as we got out (I suspect because the transmission was slowly draining more fluid into the pan from the transmission as it sat).

To solve that we jacked the car up on the side of the fill plug and also started the car (which sucked fluid back up into the transmission. Then we were able to easily get the exact volume back in. This only changes what's in the pan which is about a third of the total volume. We did this process twice after driving for about 15 minutes between changes which we estimate replaced about 75% of the fluid. This cost was about 1/4 of the cost of having the dealer do it.

Not sure if this was a smart move. Luckily it was my brother's car we experimented on. I'll report back if there are problems. I think I would have the dealer do the CVT Transmission fluid change.

Yes, it will be more expensive. But there is zero danger involved in getting anything wrong. If you did it and there was some type of failure involved, it could easily cause warranty issues. Type, amount, and temperature of fluid is very critical in these modern transmissions.

By going through the dealer you will have paperwork proving they did the fluid change, and no one else.I knew a co worker who had the transmission fluid changed on his Nissan Versa at Big-O Tires. They put in the wrong fluid. It destroyed the transmission in less than 1,000 miles.

(Transmission started jerking and lurching during acceleration). To make a long story short, he had to hire an attorney.

Finally after much back and forth Big-O paid for his new transmission to the tune of $3,850.00. I'll save money elsewhere. When i had my focus titanium it was scary at times. But that was back in 2012 when they first put the DCT in the focus, i'm sure they got better but with 2 small kids at the time, i couldn't take the risk of losing my forward gears, like coming into a rotary or a on ramp to the highway, almost got ass ended so many times. But the 40% it worked it was fun as fck. Launch control was a blast (foot on the brake and gas to the floor, the motor didnt rev up past 3500 and when you let the brake go it took off like a rocket).

But the CVT in my two corolla's have had absolutely no issues with a combined 130k miles. And if there was one, there are many crashed ones in the junk yards for parts.lol i have no problem ramming through the gears on a on ramp and getting up to and past highway speeds by the end of the ramp. The paddle shifters are fun while cornering.

And its so nice to down shift and get that little extra boost to pass cars. If your eyeballing a 2018 corolla, get it, get it fast and spend the extra few grand and get the xse with all the bells and whistles. Unless your down south then the heated seats would suck.lol. 0-90 is pretty fast 90 to 110 takes abit more time.

A few dislikes but i could count on one hand with a few missing fingers. But you can always grandma it and never switch to manual mode.

But using the manual mode makes me really miss true manuals. Overall i have had a blast with the cvt in the corollas. I'm starting to believe a large amount of complaints about CVT Transmissions have nothing to do with reliability. There are simply far too many of them out there, that if there was any type of serious reliability issues with them, it would have surfaced by now. There isn't, in spite of the fact most all of the compacts from the biggest manufacturers all use them, and have for years. There are literally millions of them on the road in this country alone.

Millions more throughout Continental Europe, where 4 cylinder compacts are even more popular than in this country, due to high fuel costs.And one thing people do with Toyota's is keep them, and rack up high mileage in the process. So if all these CVT Transmissions currently out there were so bad, and had serious reliability issues coupled with high failure rates, there would have been massive recalls with them. There hasn't been. I think what makes them so unpopular is they drive much differently. And in the process somewhat 'detune' the car, and turn off people who like, want, and expect performance in most everything they drive. You have to accept these 4 cylinder compacts for what they are.

Basic A to B transportation and grocery getters, and nothing more. If you want 'excitement' in your driving, buy a performance car. Not a 4 cylinder compact with mag wheels.I just think people expect way too much from these vehicles.

And because they don't deliver it, right away they want to blame and complain about the CVT as being part of the problem. At least that's my take. I base it on the fact I'm not hearing from people who tend to badmouth them, and give problems and failure as the reason why. They just don't like them. Which is fine.

But that in itself should not tarnish the reliability and dependability factor of them. Reverse flush is definitely a no-no. Power flush is a no-no for non previously maintained transmission as it can displace settled gunk, either where it shouldn't or away from wear parts that were literally working by virtue of this 'gunk glue' until then. It might be OK for preventive maintenance (if there is a point) but not necessary, since one could perform a flush without equipment that goes further then partial change via the pan. At least with regular AT.

I don't know for CVT, and would rather trust a professional on that one. I agree about Focus ST, even RS seems to have it's share of problems. Head gasket failures due to accidentally installing mustang 2.3 gasket at factory. Although Mustang turbo uses pretty much same engine, just detuned, apparently needed something more durable due to up in HP or engine warp? One thing that's always been on my mind is back when mazda was under Ford and had mazdaspeed 2.3 turbo in mazda 3 and mazda 6. Wonder if the engines are anything alike with the current 2.3 in Mustang or Focus RS?

I think they're pretty much the same since it was Ford's technology in mazda vehicles but who knows. You would think that after using it for so many years they would have learned their lessons and would produce a bulletproof turbo motor but it doesn't look like that. Again, speculation since I never owned a mazda or ford with 2.3 Turbo. I'm seriously considering a new 2018 Corolla. Like many, I'm concerned about these CVT Automatic Transmissions.

Mostly the reliability and longevity of them. I plan to keep this car a very long time, and I've read these new CVT Transmissions can have problems once they get past the warranty. Does anyone know if this is this based on fact?Has anyone experienced any issues? And are you satisfied with the way the CVT operates? There appear to be literally millions of these things on the road. So one can't help ask the question, just how bad can they be?

That link mimics everything that I've read about CVT Transmissions. The people who hate them do so, not because they lack reliability. But rather because they lack the performance they like and want. I don't care about that. When I want performance I'll drive my 360 H.P. HEMI V-8 Jeep Grand Cherokee with it's 8-Speed Transmission. The 4-cylinder CVT's drive smooth, maximize fuel economy, and account for very low revs on the highway.

Exactly what you want in a 4-cylinder economy car. Not having the engine screaming it's guts out, trying to produce non existent 'performance'. If anything I have been driving less than normal, had been away for work for 3 days, and driven just to work and back mostly. This incident happened about 30-40 minutes into driving after the car had not been used for just over a day. Not the same principle.

A serpentine belt sits on the groove of a pulley. Friction pulls it and the belt movement pulls some other pulley.A CVT is rather a “push belt” type. The belt doesn’t sit on the groove but moves freely up and down on pulley’s side.Those pulleys are actually cones. Varying the position of the belt from higher to lower on the sides of either cones create an infinite number of “gears”.So the belt is tightly pushed from its side while moving up and down. That requires a lot of pressure.Without a fluid able to sustain such pressure while allowing movement, the belt and the cones would mutually grind themselves in no time (hello, GM-Fiat metal scraps in CVT).The secret is in protecting those high-pressured components with the least possible parasite loss in friction.Hence the importance of temperature management for optimal operation (hello, Nissan-Jatco foaming fluid). Not the same principle.

A serpentine belt sits on the groove of a pulley. Friction pulls it and the belt movement pulls some other pulley.A CVT is rather a “push belt” type. The belt doesn’t sit on the groove but moves freely up and down on pulley’s side.Those pulleys are actually cones. Varying the position of the belt from higher to lower on the sides of either cones create an infinite number of “gears”.So the belt is tightly pushed from its side while moving up and down. That requires a lot of pressure.Without a fluid able to sustain such pressure while allowing movement, the belt and the cones would mutually grind themselves in no time (hello, GM-Fiat metal scraps in CVT).The secret is in protecting those high-pressured components with the least possible parasite loss in friction.Hence the importance of temperature management for optimal operation (hello, Nissan-Jatco foaming fluid). I'm seriously considering a new 2018 Corolla. Like many, I'm concerned about these CVT Automatic Transmissions.

Mostly the reliability and longevity of them. I plan to keep this car a very long time, and I've read these new CVT Transmissions can have problems once they get past the warranty.

Does anyone know if this is this based on fact?Has anyone experienced any issues? And are you satisfied with the way the CVT operates?

There appear to be literally millions of these things on the road. So one can't help ask the question, just how bad can they be?

I know it's aggravating when you have to push people to do what they're f'ing supposed to do anyway. I'd be pretty inclined to stay on their asses, find another dealer, or start going over their head, however that is done. I guess there is some national Toyota service organization you can call in situations like this. But yeah, major PITA if you ever want to deal with that dealer again.No way in the world the car should feel as if you upshifted that excessively. IMO, (and it may not mean much, because I don't know much at all about cars), unless you're exceeding the capabilities of the vehicle (e.g. Climbing too a hill that is just too steep), the ECU and CVT should completely avoid that behavior.

I don't understand how anybody can argue that such is normal, except that they are lying assholes. Maybe, if Toyota screwed up.

Not normal.30 years ago, where I worked, one of our vendors would respond to reports of failure scenarios that were obviously stupid code: 'Works As Designed'. That vendor isn't around anymore. That needs to happen to some of these 'service advisors' too. Yea, i had my 'update' on my 2017 xse at about 55k miles. Never had a complaint, loved the cvt, not it just drives funky, like im in a gear to high but i wasnt like that before. I got 65k on my 17, i drive alot for fun so i notice the small crap, but i don't know it just seems dullish.

2017 Toyota Corolla Transmission Recall

Just seems some times i have to go down a extra 'gear' just to get that extra pep. I drive alot in sport mode and shift through the 'gears' but since this update i am starting to see the shutter and the lagging between 'gears' and kinda feel a studder through the shift when im slowing down and it downshifts. I saw the 2020 models and i think my 17 will prob be my last corolla.