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Hey guys. Before I start, this is [B]not[/B] one of those “My transmission is failing, will a fluid change fix it?”
A little background on the car:
I bought this 2000 Acura 3.2TL from the original owner. It has 201,000 on the clock. Owner told me the transmission was replaced by Acura at 90,000 miles. When I registered it on owners.acura.com I discovered the following recalls:
Automatic Transmission Warranty Extension – The status is still open meaning the owner never particiapted.
TL Automatic Transmission 2nd Gear – The status is fixed. I’m guessing the 2nd gear clutch pack was replaced.
All of that having been said, I’m fairly confident that this transmission isn’t going to fail.
Anyway, to the point. The transmission shifts perfectly, but the fluid looks a little darker red than it should. It does not smell burnt. Should I change the fluid? 200k is a lot of miles, especially if the transmission is original. I remember in an ETCG video, a transmission fluid change is sort of a “Damned if you do damned if you don’t.” type deal. What I got from that was “Your transmission could fail if you do it, or it could fail if you don’t do it.” Should I change the fluid, or should I stick to “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”? All input would be appreciated.
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The truth is that when I worked for Acura I was putting in 2 sometimes 3 of those transmissions in a day and even after they had been replaced once already. In short, it’s likely the transmission will fail again one day no matter what you do. Changing the fluid is a GREAT thing to do however.
My only concern is I’ve heard horror stories where people changed the fluid using the genuine ATF from Honda, and what was once a perfect transmission, started slipping after they did a 3×3 fluid change.
[quote=”Yoyo” post=34560]My only concern is I’ve heard horror stories where people changed the fluid using the genuine ATF from Honda, and what was once a perfect transmission, started slipping after they did a 3×3 fluid change.[/quote]
As stated before, its a roll of the dice.
Its dependent on mileage, how well the maintenance was done and i believe the trans in those vehicles were problematic.
I would just do a drain and fill. It won’t replace all your fluid but it will help. On my Civic, I do a drain and fill every 2 oil changes.
i do the tranny drain/fill procedure on a regular 30k mile basis and not had any problems so far. in fact, i just did a drain and fill a couple weeks ago. the fluid looked red before i drained it out and after filling it up, the fluid really looked red. i’m over 155k miles on my maxima.
If you change the oil you can’t get all the oil out of the transmission just by removing the drain plug.There is still oil in the torque converter that you can’t get out.So you are mixing new oil with old oil this could effect the shift quality and may shorten the life of the transmission.I would not change the oil.
[quote=”87honda accord” post=34677]If you change the oil you can’t get all the oil out of the transmission just by removing the drain plug.There is still oil in the torque converter that you can’t get out.So you are mixing new oil with old oil this could effect the shift quality and may shorten the life of the transmission.I would not change the oil.[/quote]
That’s true but changing some oil is better than not changing it and given the situation I would just do a drain and refill to see if you get any results. There seems to be this philosophy that ALL the transmission fluid needs to be changed whenever changing trans fluid, I don’t subscribe to this, I think if you change it at a given service interval it normally is all that is needed. The only time I would stress changing all the fluid is after a rebuild in which case I would make sure to flush the lines to make sure all the debris is removed. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to try and change all the fluid I just don’t think it’s as necessary as many seem to believe.
I appreciate everyone’s input.
I’m obviously no expert but this is how I look at it:
A transmission’s worst enemy is heat. As to my understanding, the function of the transmission oil, besides lubricating the works, is to help deal with the large amounts of heat created by friction in the transmission.
I suppose over time the oil could lose its ability to deal with heat as well as it did when it was new, but wouldn’t replacing three quarts of old oil with new oil dilute the old, dirty oil, making it more effective to deal with heat?
I know that Honda stopped making ATF-Z1, and replaced it with ATF-DW1 which, to my understanding, is synthetic.
Please do correct me if I’m wrong because at the end of the day I’m part of the ETCG community to learn. Thanks again, everyone. 🙂
I’m going to be honest and tell you that at some point that transmission will fail no matter what. It’s a bad design and there is little you can do about that. Changing the fluid with Honda fluid is the best that you can do and that’s what I would stick to.
I will say that while my car is a Honda and not an Acura I recently changed the transmission fluid on my 1997 honda del sol with 167,000 miles and it shifts better than ever. I noticed there are a lot of forums of people afraid after a certain amount of miles that changing the fluid will bork the car but I believe that does not apply to Hondas. Just imo
Fair enough. It’s decided. I’ll do a 3×3 fluid change on it then. Thanks for your help, everyone. 🙂
[quote=”awaite67″ post=35047]I will say that while my car is a Honda and not an Acura I recently changed the transmission fluid on my 1997 honda del sol with 167,000 miles and it shifts better than ever. I noticed there are a lot of forums of people afraid after a certain amount of miles that changing the fluid will bork the car but I believe that does not apply to Hondas. Just imo[/quote]
Not talking about those transmissions. The bad transmissions were on the J series V6 especially from 99-03.
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