Wow, SevereService. This is a well-done write up with a lot of great info. Thanks for putting in the effort. I don't have an auto, but I couldn't help but read the entire thing. Nicely done.

 

um. you realize a drain and fill is $100 at the dealer? DIY is reasonable (even if unnecessary). But most of us don't DIY. Don't go scaring people into dumping their cars at 70K because they didn't drain/fill their transmissions twice a year or spending hundreds every year they don't need to.

I don't agree with SB that you may "blow" your transmission by obsessively changing the fluid, but this advice isn't helping people.

There's a happy medium. 7,000 miles isn't it.

 

Here is what I am saying:

- I said in the thread that if you do it yourself than doing it every 7000 miles is easier than flushing at 30,000 miles. If you do it yourself and flush at 30,000 miles than that will be much harder.

- For the person servicing their car at the dealer or mechanic than my suggestion is having it flushed at 30,000 miles which will cost between $150-200. Most people put about 20,000 miles on their car a year. So the flush will come after a 1.5 years of use.

- The factory maintenance schedule in the Helms guide specifies 60,000 miles. Some people report the Maintenance Minder 3 coming on around 40,000 miles.

- I showed you what the ATF fluid looks like at about 32000 miles of mostly city stop and go traffic. Looks dark red approaching brown. How would that fluid look at 60,000 miles?

So its up to you when to change the fluid. My suggestion is to replace all of the fluid sometime before 30,000 miles whether it gets changed all at once with a flush or a drain/fill at every oil change. If you dont really plan to keep the car long than you may just want to use the regular maintenance interval.

My plan is to keep my car for as long as possible so I am going to do a drain/fill every 7000 miles which will take me about 15-30 minutes to do.

 

30,000 miles is aggressive for most people, and that's with a drain/fill, not a full flush. SS is way off kilter with this recommendation IMO.

 

Do this...call up any experienced mechanic out there or any Honda service department and ask at what mileage would it be appropriate to change the fluid. Also ask if you should flush it or do a drain&fill. Then come back here to report your findings.

I believe a mechanic who works on these vehicles all day would know. Ask them when they change the ATF fluid on their own personal vehicle.

I know what Popular Mechanics says. It says to flush every 30,000 miles. They even remarked how automobile manufacturers were backing down from long drain intervals. Popular Mechanics has a different way of flushing the system which is to take out the transmission cooler, unhook lines, etc. However, the 4 times drain and fill will be easier and there is less a chance of breaking something for the do it yourselfer.

Changing Your Transmission Fluid - Popular Mechanics

Honda had this 60,000 mile drain interval than they started encountering problems. Instead of lowering the interval, they re-formulated the fluid.

Some here may think Asian cars are bullet proof, but no car is bullet proof unless you maintain it correctly. I had a Toyota Solara which I bought at 150,000 miles thinking it would last forever. I changed the oil, atf and all the fluids when I got it. I then changed the oil every 5000 miles with high quality synthetic Mobil 1. At 201,000 miles I had rod knock and that was the death of an engine. Probably one of the previous owners did not maintain it correctly and this was the result.

You guys can do whatever you want with your cars. For my car, I will be doing a drain and fill at 7000 miles in my driveway.

 

SevereService, while I applaud your effort in writing this up, I do tend to side with the others that this is not some crazy conspiracy and big Honda flaw that requires huge drastic action.

I can't imagine what the writeup is going to be when you start googling on coolant and coolant problems and advanced preventative coolant maintenance

Either way, the that it is not too expensive as maintenance, and do what you wish with your car.

Here are my tips:

-I think doing 4changes with no specific problem is wasteful. I personally chose to do an ATF d/f during my first 2 oil changes (reason is to switch most to dw-1, rather then any issue or that I thought the fluid was bad. Then will maybe go every other year from here on out just so i can use up my case and save some shelf space. Since this car does not get many miles, I'll then be 6years out when I finally use up the case,, and good to go for at least 30kmiles, so that puts me around at least 8-10year old range...Can cross that bridge when we get to it.

-Really what you should do is inspect and look at the fluid and use that as a big factor to influence your maintenance more than any schedule. You didn't mention anything about actually inspecting the fluid to judge whether it needed to be changed

-search for the existing dw-1 threads that already wrote all of this up. Also should be a thread on purchasing. Available cheaper online as well as by the case.

-I think generally a T-tech machine properly operated with the correct fluid will exchange the fluid in a shorter time and will less waste (google this if you don't know what a t-tec is). There is no doom-and-gloom if done at a real shop. If you go to the quickchange shops and ended up with problems, operator error or not manufacturer's fluid. However, paying for this service is a wash compared to your $0 DIY labor and just buying more fluid that does gets wasted.

-If this took you 3hours to do, that means you're averaging 45min-1hour to perform each one. This procedure is technically less difficult than an oil change.

You can greatly reduce the time and difficultly of this by
1) use a fluid extractor to suck out the fluid from the dipstick hole (e.g. mityvac). Then you can do the whole job topside. This also allows you to park on a downslope and actually get a nice even 3quarts out. Which makes a very convenient 4changes/case.

2) Use a transmission fluid funnel (big surprise-the name of the tool is the one specifically for this job). It is just a funnel with a tube attached. There is no need to run to home depot and start measuring inner diameters of tubing, the complete tool already exists. I thought it was somewhat crazy that you went to the trouble of removing the airbox to just filll (and if you did this 3-4times, man, this just made an easy job twice as complex.)

I am basing my knowledge on my having changed ATF on my lexus/toyota cars (which also for the past 10years and of which are also picky on the fluid. Over this time, I've changed transmission fluid 12times for the 3 lexuses. and also 2x for the Fit (no problems, but wanted dw-1) . Plus I lurk quite a bit on BITOG.
My procedure time is now about 10-15min with zero drops of fluid spilled (just what i need to wipe off from the dipsticks/funnels/tubing).

hope this helps

 

-When it took me 2.5 - 3 hours to do the 4 times drain and refill, I wasnt moving at a professional's pace. I was basically at home doing it in a leisurely manner. If I was more focused and doing it with more energy, than it would have been less time.

-Using any kind of machine to do a flush goes against Honda's service news bulletin as I posted in the thread up top.

-Most people will not be changing the ATF fluid everyday or every month. A 30,000 mile ATF flush will be 1.5 to 2.0 years for most folks out there. For the do it your selfer, all you have to do is move the wrench and pan less than a foot adding maybe 15 minutes to your routine. So for the do it your selfer it makes sense to do a drain and fill at each oil change. For the person who takes it to a mechanic, than a flush is more practical at 30,000 miles.

-I would say most mechanics out there would tell you to change the ATF at 30,000 miles for most cars and they would also probably be changing it at that interval on their own personal car. When I mean change, I mean flushing or draining/filling it 4 times over. Those sealed units with lifetime ATF tend to have problems. For example, I remember going to a Chevy dealership and they had these big crates stacked up against the wall. I asked, what are those and they said transmissions. I have never seen these large crates before at a Toyota or Honda dealership.

So Hondas are very reliable cars, but there is no car out there you can ride around doing no maintenance. Automatic transmissions are very tricky pieces and if you want to make them last than you need to change that fluid at or below 30,000 miles. A transmission cooler would also help.

 

I think his time spent changing included driving the car between drain & fills- if he spread that over several days then that would be using the car for transportation and thus that wouldn't be extra time spent just driving to mix the fluid.

But as for asking experienced mechanics and dealerships how often to change it? I think that automotive engineers would know better- even if mechanics kept track of who changed their fluid after how many miles and how many of them had transmission problems that still probably wouldn't be enough data from which to draw a conclusion.

Most cars are still under warranty at 30,000 miles (the average car is driven less than 15,000 miles a year, not 20,000), so if problems developed around then, Honda would be worried about it. I think that transmission problems these days are relatively uncommon, so I'll take my chances with following Honda's recommendations. Remember, they don't want broken cars they have to pay to fix, and they also make money selling transmission fluid.

 

SS,

Thank you for starting and sticking with this discussion. Your writeup is meticulously detailed and useful. Though others may not agree with all the details, I'm sure everyone appreciates this first-hand accounting of your experiences with the Honda Fit. Very valuable information!

 

Thanks for the info. I will suggest to my Mom that she changes her fluid every 30,000 miles. Are there any transmission lines running to the front of the car? With most cars, the simple way to do a change is to disconnect that line and run the car with the transmission in gear. You attach a line stuck in fresh fluid to the suction side. It will pump all of the old fluid out and suck up the new. You're done when you see fresh fluid coming out.

 

Dealers don't do a flush for $100. I'm not even sure this is recommended. By anyone besides jiffylube.

The normal service interval is 120,000 miles for a fluid "change." This is a simple drain/fill of 2.5 quarts. Replacing all the fluid before 30,000 isn't practical or cost effective unless you do it yourself.

If it makes you happy to drain/fill your transmission every 7,000 miles, go for it; it's good therapy. But I'd categorize this behavior has OCD along with 3,000 mile oil changes. It is not recommended by anyone, least of all Honda.

For your "severe service" honda recommends a change (drain/fill) @ 60,000 and then every 30,000 miles.

What's the definition of "change." It's in your owners manual:

 

-The only procedure recommended by Honda to flush is to drain/fill, drive for a short while to mix it up or row through the gears if using a mechanical lift, repeat 4 times. Honda does not want you doing it any other way and they especially dont want you to use a machine. It is tedious, time consuming and you will go through at least $90 of transmission fluid and that is why its an expensive process at the dealership.

-As for the automobile engineers, Im not sure if they do know better. The owner of the vehicle doesnt take the car to the engineer when they break down. The people who know these cars the best are the ones who work on them all the time. Sure, they might be out to make money on you, but they do know the car better than the engineers. The engineers design it, see it out the door, but the mechanics are the ones who see these cars at their shop all the time and know intimately the problems with them.

-Coolant is a different story which you dont have to replace all the time. The cooling system is rather simple when compared to the automatic transmission. That doesnt require changing that much. Maybe somewhere over 100,000 miles you will have to change the coolant. The engine oil is perfect at the 7000 mile mark. All of the other fluid intervals on the maintenance schedule are correct in my opinion. However, transmissions are tricky. If they were not tricky than you wouldnt see all these chain stores dedicated to fixing transmissions. You do see threads on here and in other forums complaining about transmission noise. There are articles in the NY Times and other news outlets about issues.

Probably all of those issues reported were probably because of a lack of maintenance. Most transmission problems can be avoided by monitoring the FLUID LEVEL (make sure its right between those two marks checked only after driving) and the quality of the fluid itself. By changing the fluid more often, than you are assured the fluid is of a better quality.

There is a situation where ATF should not be changed. Lets say you havent changed the fluid for a while...many years... and its black or burnt. That is when you have to get a professional mechanic involved. If you change out black fluid with new clear fluid than there is a chance it might seize up. In that situation its best not to change the fluid and let the transmission fail on its own. Its best not to ever let it get to that point, therefore changing the ATF fluid every 30,000 or two years is generally a good policy.

 

If you want to be meticulous, the best recommendation would be to send a sample of for testing. Going based on color is bogus because the dye that makes it pink doesn't do any lubrication nor is it calibrated to go away at any point. Its just there to make ATF look pink. If you are spending the money to change the atf every OCI, you might as well spend a few bucks more to see if its worth it. Send an oil sample in as well to check on that as well.

 

My point was that mechanics may see broken transmissions but they're not compiling data on what caused them to fail nor on how often the fluid's been changed. For warranty work the car companies are probably looking for an excuse to deny a claim, so if a car's not been properly maintained according to specified service intervals they'd want to keep track of that.

As far as shops dedicated to transmissions, I'm not sure how much of their business in the 21st century is still transmissions, they do other stuff too. It may be a marketing issue- people know that transmissions are complicated, so they figure someone who can fix one knows a lot about cars... there are dedicated tire/brake shops too, also dedicated body shops, glass shops, muffler shops...

 

I'm trying my best SS, but:

Where are you coming up with this? There is no Honda service in my area that prescribes to this, I've called and spoken to them. It's drain and fill. 30K miles is the spoken interval, not even sure where the Fit's MM comes up on it.

The insistence to promote the notion of the need to do a 'complete' change of A/T fluid is something you have created. All well and good, but many will/have disagreed. Accept it.

My interest in your 'maintenance' threads is waning. Wrong info is not good, however, your desires to second guess Honda purely on your opinion and you seem dedicated to your thoughts. This makes your threads interesting... but trying. The 'problems' with all Honda A/T's is a minimal one, by the grand scheme of things. They are very reliable cars manufactured well.

I'm thinking "Penny wise - Pound foolish". No offense_

K_C_

 

Everyone here needs to remember that 'SevereService' actually is driving his car in "severe" conditions for any transmission - stop and go, New York City, traffic. Just because he is going out and changing his fluid doesn't mean everyone has to do it. But doing so won't hurt anything but your checkbook and is still a good preventative maintenance plan. With all the shearing that would occur with the city driving like that, I would switch out my fluid, too!

But I would be more prone to switch out my ATF filter more often than doing a drain and fill on the fluid itself. Next time you have 30k miles on the fluid, drain it and collect a sample and send it into Blackstone Labs for an analysis. They'll let you know if its still good or not. If it is, then I would just change the ATF filter more often. Niko3257 wrote up a decent how to here. Just my two cents...

 

Fwiw, older Hondas did go with the drain and fill 4 times. However, that was accompanied with much longer change intervals. The fsm for the fit just goes with a single drain and fill.

 

The vast majority of articles on the internet suggest 30,000 miles. Actually, I have seen from 15000 to 40000 miles recommended as the mileage on the internet site. Just do a simple google search like I did. My local Honda dealership, Mahwah Honda, has stated 30,000 miles as the change interval. Both the Discovery Channel and Popular Mechanics have suggested that 30,000 miles is the interval and that manufacturer's recommendations are too long. I have seen quite a few independent transmission shops on the internet suggest anywhere from 15000 to 30,000 miles as the change interval.

Its your car and you can do whatever you want with it. If you disagree with me, than simply dont change it sooner than the manufacturer suggests. However, all of the fluid will be changed out of my Honda Fit sooner than later. If you need more information on the issue and are really interested in this topic than talk face to face with a local mechanic. I dont think there are any mechanics out there who will tell you getting the transmission serviced later at 60,000 miles is a good idea.

 

I agree that most transmissions go way too long without a change, but I'm a maintenance freak who considers 100,000 miles as just the start to car ownership. I've owned several with well over 200,000.

I am VERY impressed with Honda for having a transmission drain plug. That is both awesome and tells you that they see the tranny fluid as something that should be changed regularly. That is in sharp contrast to the v8 Explorer that I had. The transmission was a sealed, yes sealed unit with no dipstick, drain, or fill. It was recommended to run it till it breaks and then replace the entire unit. That is the worst decision I've seen by any manufacture. That is only one of the reasons I got rid of the vehicle. At 40,000 miles it was shifting sporadically and was neutral dropping on a regular basis.

 

Some of my family have Fords. One has an Econoline van and the other a Ford Explorer. Both needed transmissions at one point. I would not trust Ford at all. If I had the money, the only Ford I would buy is the Mustang GT.

When I was shopping around for a car, I had a choice between the Focus and the Fit. The Focus was faster, quieter and there was a lot to like. However, this new Focus has no history on Consumer Reports. I imagined myself in 5 years...where would I be? Would the Focus be needing something? I chose the Fit because it was a lot sportier to drive than the Corolla and it has an excellent reliability history on Consumer Reports.

I think with proper maintenance you will get a lot of miles out of the Fit.