[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by supdaf

I have a Subaru outback that will need a cvt fluid change sooner that I would like, but I am curious about how to refill the fluid. it has both a drain and fill port but the service manual talks about fluid temp. apparently the fluid needs to be at operating temp for the level to be correct.

ok. how much does that fluid(the special Subaru magic oil) expand with temp? I would not think it would be much. 1/10qt, 1/100qt?

If you carefully measure what you drain, then refill the same amount, it should be fine.

I did the fluid and filter on my C63, which was also temperature dependent. I used an IR thermometer on the metal pan which seemed to be close enough. Some high end OBD readers will also output live data like transmission temperature that you can use for level checks.