should i change my transmission fluid it’s dark brown (picture is provided) [duplicate]

Question

Hello people i’m kind of hesitant to change my transmission fluid i do not know if the car has been serviced i bought it from a guy and the miles were around the 180k now it’s at 200,754 miles, it’s a 2008 toyota yaris and i do a lot of traffic driving down in socal and i’ve checked the fluid it look like a darkish brown, i’ve uploaded a pic and hopefully you guys can see it, i’ve had a problem way before where my gear was reverse and it went forward instead but that only happen once and that was probably in the summer of 2019 i’ve heard many stories of where people change their fluid and the transmission stops working, so i don’t know what to do is it worth changing? and i also have a 6 hour drive on sunday

Answer 1

Transmission fluid should always be changed per owners manual. If fluid is brown it definitely needs to be changed. Many myths have been created about not changing fluid. Most of these start because some people only change their fluid when a problem occurs. Then blame the problem on the fluid change. There is also the continuing debate about flushing the transmission. Many good mechanics recommend flushes and many good mechanics say never flush. I am on the side of change when you're supposed to, and never flush. But if you do condone flushing, take a look at your owners manual. Some will specify to never flush because of the way the transmission is configured.