If i go down to any car fix place will they put the right tranny fluid in my car or use some tranny fluid for some cheap ford or some shit... i heard that we should use the honda brand.. does dealership do this or car fix place?

 

well... what kind of fluid they put into ur transmission will ultimately depend on who you take it to. Yes you should definitely get Honda transmission fluid as it is best for all driving conditions. I've heard of many people going with racing type tranny fluids and found that for regular day to day driving it is a pain in the butt.

Worst comes to worst, you could always ask the shop what they will use and if they don't use what you like, goto ur local honda/acura dealership and pick some up. Have them put it in for you.

 

buy the transmission fluid yourself and take it with you to the service center

 

make sure u use the factory fluid. thats what honda calls for. plus it shifts smoother then all that other crap.will we notice a difference with the other stuff. harder shift and whining.

 

you might call up your dealership and see what they'll change you to do it.

I recently paid 65 after tax at my dealership. a smaller shop wanted 50 to do it with Honda MTF.

it was much more convient for me to just pay the extra 15 for the dealership.

 

dealership said 170 lol wtf united states dollar

 

Just find a good independant tech.
$30

 

Is your car an Auto or Manual? the Auto is more expensive to flush/fill the transmission.

 

My dealership wanted $190 for auto and $150 for manual. This is the Acura North Scottsdale dealership by the way.

 

I have experience with this from my old 98 Accord that my new 08 TSX replaced in Feb...

At the Honda dealer I did my service at, they explained that you can change the fluid 1x or 3x. Doing it three times completely removes all the gunk or something, much more throughly than just draining and refilling one time. The difference in price was significant, standard replacement(1x) was something like $70ish, to do it 3x was more like $150, and took a couple hours. Being as my 98's original V6 auto tranny was replaced at 65k miles, 4k miles before I bought it in 2004, and knowing the history of Honda auto trannys from that generation of Accords/CL/TLs, I changed the fluid at the dealer every year, about every 22k miles. Every other time I would do it 3x. Might have been overkill but I did NOT want to have to replace the tranny, with the extremely high failure rate of those poorly designed trannys, and the fact the first one lasted only 65k before it was replaced. It was me who insisted this service to the dealership, they did not try to sell it to me as preventitive maintenence. I forgot what the book said, but I think it was more like every 60k miles to replace the tranny fluid. All I know is that the tranny shifted as smooth as it did with 4k miles on it when I traded it in at 136k miles.

With my TSX I don't see a past history of tranny issues so i plan to just do it when the MM code pops up. I know from reading forums like this Hondas/Acuras are very picky about various fluids.

So if some places quote upwards of $150, be aware that is probably to do it 3x, to do it 1x is probably closer to $60 or $70. If they insist on doing it 3x every time, that is overkill and I wouldn't go to that dealer for service. 3x is not a bad idea maybe once every 3 fluid replacements? But not every time.

Oh and make sure they don't "flush" a Honda AT, the manual always states NOT to do this, I guess you can do this with American cars or something. Some dealers call it a "flush" but the Honda procedure does not involve any flushing of the fluid.

 

For your AT, one drain-and-fill cycle will only replace 3.0 quarts of ATF (43.5% of the 6.9 quart capacity). You need to do multiple drain-and-fill cycles to replace the majority of the fluid. That is why 3 drain-and-fill cycles are recommended. FYI,

1 drain/fill = 43% of ATF replaced
2 drain/fill = 68% of ATF replaced
3 drain/fill = 82% of ATF replaced

after 3 cycles you reach the point of diminishing returns. (a 4th one will get you to 89%)