2002 Honda Accord Transmission Fluid Changing

Mechanic said that if your transmission fluid has never been changed (which I’m almost positive mine has), if you change it at this stage, you are risking your transmission completely going out. Does anyone have any knowledge of this?

Step #1–Ignore this mechanic, and never darken his door again. While he is correct that Hondas of this vintage have known serious transmission issues, his statement is more representative of an “Old Wives Tale” than it is of technical knowledge.

Step#2–Take the car to an independent transmission shop (NOT AAMCO, Lee Myles, Cottman, Mr. Transmission, or any other chain operation) and have them change the trans fluid and filter.

Step #3–Do a lot of praying that your transmission continues to operate.
No–not because the fluid was changed, but because this VERY belated maintenance may not be enough to save any 10 year old unmaintained transmission, no less one from a model with a history of transmission issues.

Please note–I really don’t know how to correctly interpret some of the wording in your post ["…if your transmission fluid has never been changed (which I’m almost positive mine has)"]. I’m not completely sure what you are trying to tell us with that statement.

If you are telling us that you are not sure if the fluid has ever been changed, that is not a good sign.
On the other hand, if you think that it was changed some time in the distant past, but that you can’t remember when, that is really not much better. Trans fluid needs to be changed every 30k miles or 3 years (whichever comes first), and failure to do that is the sure way to send a transmission to an early grave.

Do you have any maintenance records to refer to, regarding when this trans was serviced over the past decade? It should have been serviced 3 times so far.

I was looking them up after I posted. Yes, I have had the fluid changed as required.

Good. Since this transmission has no pan you cant change the filter. All you need to do is drain and fill every 25-30k miles. USE GENUINE HONDA FLUID ONLY!!!

transman

No specialist is needed for a Honda transmission with regards to changing the Honda fluid(only). Its simply a drain/bolt/refill as stated before.

As others have said, don’t buy into that old wife’s tale saying that if you change the fluid it will cause the transmission to fail. That comes from drivers who never changed the fluid until the transmission started giving them a problem and then they changed the fluid after it had already been damaged by their failure to change the fluid when it should be (before it damages the transmission.)

I’ll just add that the “mechanic” who gave you this silly advice is not really a mechanic at all.