It’s a good thing to stand hard on the brake pedal of a parked 10 or more year old car driven on salted roads after each winter is over to see if a brake line will rupture.
It would be interesting to know what Consumer Reports had to say about this car when it was new including predicted reliability.
The stuff made by castrol meets the specs for the fluid that you have in the transmission right now, it is NOT the equivalent of the new Honda ATF. Using the Castrol will not accomplish what you want and using the additives could even be worse. Those additives are for Dexron III, you cannot tell how they will react with the additives in either the Castrol or the Honda ATF so avoid them. BTW, I like Seafaom products in general, but I would not use them in a Honda transmission.
BTW, I do not disagree with circuitsmith either, but I have found that even one drain and refill with the new Honda ATF makes the transmission shift (cold) much smoother, even though it only exchanges 2.5 qts of the 6 that are in there.
Keith, thanks muchly for that info! I’ll take myself down to the dealership sometime this week and pick up some more ATF. The car’s been doing good as long as it’s given a chance to warm up in the morning, but we don’t want to do any more damage to it.
Bloody knuckles and wha who, thank you also! Good stuff to know. I do live in Arkansas, so salty roads aren’t a problem. But as I’m doing all the rest of my car maintenance now, I might as well give it a good once over and check out the condition of the brake and fuel lines.
“I do not disagree with circuitsmith either, but I have found that even one drain and refill with the new Honda ATF makes the transmission shift (cold) much smoother”
I edited my previous post to emphasize my main point.
Mike, just to clarify, the new Honda ATF is DW-1, the older stuff was Z1. The older stuff is not damaging your transmission, unless it is getting old and needs to be changed, but the new stuff (DW-1) is supposed to improve the cold shifting problems that has plagued Honda’s for years. I did a simple drain and refill with just 2.5 qts on our Accord and it made a difference. I have been doing regular ATF changes as recommended since I bought the car new, so I didn’t feel the need to do a complete system change.
BTW, I live near you, in Tennessee so I have the same weather. I am one of those who never warms up the car before driving, just start her up and throw her in gear, but I live on a country road so I don’t have to get up to speed very fast so I take it real easy for the first 2 or 3 miles as everything warms up. So while I have noticed the shifting issue on our Accord, it has never rally bothered me.
UPDATE:
That doesn’t look good…
Replaced the ATF with the DW-1. But that’s more metal shavings than what I’m used to seeing on the drain plug magnet.
My brother’s wife’s Accord trans drain plug looked the same. But it shifted perfectly!
Thats about right, especially if this is its first fluid change.
Not it’s first fluid change (old fluid looked fine) but thanks for the encouragement, will hope for the best!
