Just a FYI: It only takes a bit more than a quart to fill, and is very easy to do. Remove drain plug using 3/8" square drive, eg. breaker bar. Drain fluid. While at it, remove the fill plug using a 17mm socket or open end wrench. I lower my car to ensure that all of the fluid has drained out. Replace drain plug. I have been using OEM Honda HG Manual Transmission fluid, only about $15/quart on Amazon. Purchase and use something like, "Slippery Pete Fluid Pump for Quart Bottles". This allows one to pump a quart into the top fill hole pretty quickly. Attach pumping mechanism directly onto quart bottle. Guide the output tube into the fill hole, and pump away. Keep pumping until fluid starts coming out of the fill tube, indicating the the gear box is full. I attempt to do this while the car is as level as possible.

This ~$20 service, IMHO, is a no-brainer. It's cheap and gives me added assurance that my gear box is in tip top shape. Maybe I'm a bit over zealous, but I performed this service at 30K and now at 60K miles. The fluid did come very clean looking both times, so maybe I'll wait until 100K for doing it a third time. I do combine this service with my usual 5K oil changes. Speaking of oil changes, I've been using 0W16 oil and purchasing OEM filters in bulk, $70 for 10, or 50K miles worth at a time. IMHO, the OEM oil filters are best, as they employ o-ring seals on them.

I purchase and install OEM wiper refills, only the rubber inserts. Inexpensive and allows me to keep the OEM arms going. One winter, some little plastic cover piece had fallen off. and wouldn't you know, that was even an orderable part as well. One is typically treated to full exploded diagrams of each section of our cars. It didn't take me long at all to identify and to order a replacement. I now have 60K on my car, and still with the original wiper arms, but front and rear.

I'm still on my original brakes on this Honda, even after 60K miles. I'm definitely going to at least go with OEM pads when they need to be replaced. Depending on the price, I may or may not go with OEM rotors.

Lastly tires: I've graduated to using 195/55R16's now. At 30K, I put Kumho ECSTA PA51 all around. I'm not quite at the the wear bar yet, but now that I've hit 60K, I thinking of replacing them anyway with another identical set. These tires now only cost $140 each, IMHO cheap, so I feel justified replacing these when I feel they aren't performing like they used to when they were newer. These tires are classified as ultra performance all-season radials. They are not unidirectional, can only be mounted on the rim one way, but can be rotated normally Front to Rear and Left to Right. unlike unidirectional tires, which can only be rotated between front and rear on the same side of the vehicle. Isn't it nice owning a car which doesn't cause heartache thinking about tire replacement? I really like them a lot. Had tires for our cars cost $200-$300, I would have a different attitude and keep them until I hit the tread wear indicators. For winter driving, I started with one pair of steel rims for the front, and went with a fantastic performing Vredestein Snowtrac 5 unidirectional snow tire. I also purchased another pair of steel rims a later season for the rear, and put some other brand snows that I didn't like nearly as well, as the overall tire width was less, providing little or no rim protection. My Vredestein's now need replacements after 4 seasons, couldn't find them in the US, so I'll be trying a pair of Blizzak 195/55R-16 WS90 for my front, $288 with tax, not installed yet. I happened to find a dealer on Ebay who was getting rid of last year's inventory. Brand new, never used, but seller felt it necessary to list them as used.

I should probably start a new thread for all of these ideas, but have one more. We should be cleaning our intake manifolds periodically. We have DFI cars which tend to allow our intake manifolds and valves to get dirty. I was having issues during warranty, they replaced my fuel injectors, but also cleaned my intake manifold with "Sea Foam Spray". I made a T connection and long tube adapter so that I could spray this into my intake while seated in my car, as one needs to keep the RPM's within a certain range. I made a mistake though: It stated to spray for 7 minutes. This caused my engine to misfire and go into limp mode on the spirited run that one is supposed to do after starting up the car again. So I put into my notes to only do 3 minutes worth the next time I do this, which I've scheduled for 70K. My reason for doing only 3 minutes VS 7 minutes comes down to the fact that our engines are "small", requiring less product for our needs. Just make sure that you have an OBD-2 code reader with you for the follow-up test drive, just in case you end up in limp mode like I did. Fortunately, this happened while I was still in my neighborhood. If you are interested in seeing a picture of my "Seafoam Kit", please reach out. It makes doing this job a piece of cake. I believe that I got the idea from a youtube "seafoam" video, and believe it just happened to be a Honda Fit!!! :-). I tried looking for this youtube entry again, but couldn't find it. Attach the new can to the spray tube end of my kit, get and maintain the RPM range while spraying in a timed dosage. Just make sure that you fully read the instructions on the can before performing this service.

 

30k MTF changes in Hondas is actually the proper interval. Honda MTF is very thin compared to the gear oil most manual transmissions use. It's basically 10W-30 or 10W-40 engine oil with additives. Models prior to 1998 actually list 10W-40 as the proper fluid. That's what I used in my old 1994 Civic and 1996 Accord.

Lile you said, the fluid is cheap and the job itself is easy. If you can change your own oil, you can change the trans fluid in any Honda (Except maybe the ZF 9HP that newer Pilots, Passports, Ridgelines, and Oddyseys use. It's not hard, but it's needlessly obtuse. Same for the 10 speed, which is even more annoying since they don't even give you a fill plug that's easy to access).