Doing a proper transmission service on my early 70’s Ford truck is a piece of cake. But with newer vehicles it can be very difficult to service the auto transmission fluid for a DIY’er. Yours in not an uncommon complaint. Take a look at the factory service manual procedure. I expect you’ll see the car has to be level at the time the procedure is done. Otherwise you won’t get the correct amount of fluid installed, or the correct amount drained out.
The easiest solution is to have a shop do it of course. It’s even more complicated than just keeping it level. Like I say, take a look at the car’s factory service manual. Often the car’s computer is involved in the process. If I was going to try this myself in my driveway – not that I expect to, my cars are too old – I’d have to invent a way to lift the car enough to crawl under it, but keep it level. Maybe drive the front wheels up on ramps, then jack the back wheels and put the rear end high enough on adjustable height jack stands the car was level.
Naw he just said he was talking about how tight the fill plug was, not that he did it by mistake. My drain plug was also just as tight as the fill plug. Even the impact wrench didn’t budge it.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time it’s been done. There doesn’t seem to be anything blocking the opening.
Yes, the drain plug is a squared 3/8" drive. I used a ratchet to remove it, then removed the fill plug, so both the drain and fill plugs were off.
Thanks George. I guess I’ll give it one more shot this Thursday and loosen the fill plug, then crawl under there and loosen the drain plug and hope it flows. If not, I’ll have to pay somebody else and see if the dealership will let me return the 3 quarts of ATF-DW1 I purchased last week.
Bing, I’ve checked the fluid level with the dipstick. It’s full. And I had to buy a two foot breaker bar to get the fill plug loose, after it snapped off one of my 6" extensions. That was fun .
Why can’t I reply to anyone’s specific message here? I can agree or disagree, like or report, but not reply. What gives?
Oh well, thanks much for the advice fellows.
I have an 07 factory manual and again it calls for doing it level so that’s all I can think of if the dip stick shows its full. You should get something like 3.3 quarts out of it.
Just to wrap this up.
I ended up having to let the Honda dealership do it. I tried one more time and removed both the fill plug and the drain bolt on my level garage floor; no jacks. And again, nothing came out. So I took my three quarts of DW1 to the dealer and they did the ATF service and the timing belt replacement.
So I didn’t save as much as I’d wanted to; the total bill was about $735.00. But I did change the spark plugs myself which save me about $150 and assuaged my bruised ego.
