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50K Fluid Change - so easy!

21K views 20 replies 12 participants last post by  soonerbrink 
#1 · (Edited)
During my latest oil change today I also did the ATX fluid. I bought 4 quarts of Mazda FZ on Amazon for around $12.50/qt earlier in the year. Had I known it would be this easy, I would have done this at 30K instead. The airbox removal wasn't even difficult, 2 pop clips, a sensor, and yank it out. I learned we have a snow-screen on the snorkel that prevents debris from getting in the air box - cool!

The most annoying and time consuming part was simply removing all the pop-clips and bolts (10 mm) from the underside cover. Otherwise, it was as simple as drain (8mm allen socket needed) and fill with 3.4qts of Mazda FZ. The fluid that came out was a dark tea brown, and the fluid going back in was alien cyan blue as it should be. Lifetime fluid my ass!

I plan on doing this every other year (30K mile interval) to keep things humming along smoothly, and so far it seems to have made shifts cleaner and switching from D to R is now back to butter smooth. I encourage everyone try this if they're comfortable with a regular oil change.

For reference, attached is the photo of the location of the ATX dipstick with the airbox removed.
 

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#8 · (Edited)
w1000i, Yes this is a partial fluid change. I performed that exact procedure from the serviced manual. I only got 3.4 quarts out but the transmission holds more in the torque converter and inside the valve body. Nobody recommends a flush anymore, but fairly regular partial drain/fill procedures done will keep the fluid contamination low and the fluid life and additives up.

In all seriousness though the fluid I drained out looked like dark tea, smelled not so fresh, and afterwards the transmission is far smoother on downshifts and when cold shifting in the morning than before. I will continue to make this part of my 30K ritual, it's very easy and worth it.

Considering this, it makes me wonder if I should do other things early. 60K coolant? 60K Plugs?
 
#10 · (Edited)
A couple of things to consider:

Transmission fluid only has two enemies, heat and clutch wear tailings. If you can keep the wear and heat down the fluid will last for the life of the transmission. Of the two, heat is the biggest enemy because the tailings typically settle to the bottom of the pan! The "old school" way to check the transmission fluid is to pull the dipstick and check the color (Typically crimson) on your fingers and "smell" a tell tail burnt smell. If your fluid is burnt it will lose its ability to cool and toast your transmission pretty quickly!

The reason the transmission "Flush" has gone from fashion is it seemed to loosen up the tailings that sit in the bottom of the pan and circulate them into the transmission blocking the fluid from circulating causing failure. More than 10 years ago Honda adopted the 3x3 fluid change which basically was designed to dump three quarts, fill, run the trans through the gears, dump, fill repeat two more times. They estimated that 90% of the fluid was changed in this process. If you have your car on four jack stands with the traction control off, you can do the same thing in your driveway. Just remember to put your foot on the break all the way before moving from Park, Reverse and Drive as the wheels have no drag on them and will keep turning!

I did the 3x3 in my driveway on my wife's Accord six years ago @ around 30,000 (It has 52,000 on the clock now) using Red Line 30304 and a quart of 30504 Racing Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF). I check it and never a problem since. Hope that helps!
 
#14 ·
For those who have done this ATF drain/refill (not quite a change):

Did you have the car level on four jackstands or just the front on ramps (as I do for the oil change)? It will probably be obvious which would be better when I find the location of the drain plug, but I thought I'd ask before doing the work.
 
#16 ·
You will have to remove the whole plastic dust cover underneath the car to access the drain bolt. Probably Better to have the car leveled on all four. I kind of took a shorter route and had driver side supported on jack stand enough for me to work underneath the car. However once I began to drain the oil I ended up lowering the driver side to keep the car leveled.


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#15 ·
I would recommend anyone attempting to do this also change the tranny filter at least every 60k intervals. There's a giant magnet sitting inside of the trans oil pan that collects metal particles that should be cleaned also. The most tedious part was cleaning/removing the old silicone. It would be helpful to have 1k grit sandpaper, atv gasket maker, and silicone remover.


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