How do you change the differential fluid in a 1996 Camry?

Answer 1

The differential can be found to the rear of the transmission by the left front tire. you have to jack the car up and put it on a jack stand for safety, then remove the left front (driver's) tire. You may want to jack your car such that it is level, or even tilting downward. If your car is slanting uphill, than when you fill the differential, you may not get sufficient amount of oil back in.

There is a filler plug that takes an 17mm socket on the rear side, and a 10mm Allen wrench on the bottom.

Remove the plug on the side first (use a 3/8 inch drive short socket). Then remove the plug from the bottom over a drain pain, and drain the old oil. The differential takes the same transmission fluid as the transmission does, it does not take any kind of gear oil.

The hard part of this is getting the oil back in the differential. I used a funnel and a long piece of tubing. you can pass the tubing down the engine compartment and put the tube in the fill plug hole (the first one you removed on the read side) and dump the oil in the funnel. I put in about 1/2 a quart to flush it out, then put the plug back in the bottom and filled it up from the side.

Once the level is high enough to run out the side fill plug, the differential is full. Reinsert the side plug and you are good to go.

This procedure should be done after the first 30k miles, and then every 70k miles or less.