I just don’t understand

The 3 Acura dealers in Seattle area in Washington State offer and imply a critical need for a Transmission flush at the 30,000 mile check-up. (This takes up the best part of the $450 they charge for the 30,000 check-up) I had a long discussion with the head of the service department about the need for this since Acura does not mention any need of this in their list of Normal Maintenance Schedule or Severe Maintenance Schedule. The closing statement was “if you don’t want problems with you transmission you need to have this maintenance done”. What he implied strongly was the transmission will most likely fail after 30,000 miles and the repair will be very expensive. Additionally this procedure could only be done correctly at a dealer since hooking the car to a flushing machine would not flush out all the pockets of fluid with in the transmission. The dealer would instead use a dilution process by filling and dumping the fluid 3 times with a short running of the engine in gear at each filling.

After giving the 3 dealers recommendations a lot of thought and coupled with the fact that I have found no mention on any of the Acura TSX board of transmission issues I have decided to forgo the expensive flushing of the transmission. Acura has a very good warranty and I purchased the extended warranty in addition. Both cover the transmission as part of the drive line coverage.

This is for information only and is produced from my experience with Acura Dealers in my area only. Use it as you will.

Dave in Seattle

 

how often should change mine transmission fluid? i have 04 at tsx at 40400miles. had it changed at 30000miles service

 

I've seen members on this board recommend 15K mi., and 30K mi. intervals. I tend to think that 15Kmi. is a little too frequent and side with the 30Kmi. club. As you read in the first post, the maintenance schedule doesn't address ATF flush/change.

 

The service schedule for ATF is to check via the dipstick and to replace it if it requires changing. I'd change it every 1.5 years if I could afford it.

 

well what your basically asking is on the same terms as do i need to change my engine oil? the answer is yes. 30k is reasonable for a flush and fill for the AT. think of it this way since you have extended warranty....why change your engine oil? not trying to be a dick its just kinda common sense that nothing lasts forever and needs to be changed.