4X drain & fill

[Finklejag]

I bought my 06 Acura TL off of a friend. When I bought it 5 months ago it had 159K. It nows has 161K. I’m the 3rd owner and it looks like the first owner and my friend never changed the transmission fluid since it was pretty dark and smelled burnt. I bought 9 quarts of Maxlife on sale at Napa for $5.48 back in September. I did 3X drain & fills. The oil on the dipstick was still dark after that.

I was going to stick with Maxlife but Walmart showed two different stores near me in stock and both were out. So i picked up the Idemitsu at Vatozone for $7.69 a quart. If I bought this car new, I would’ve used the Honda fluid from the start, but since I bought the car with 159K, it will get the cheapest oil that meets the Honda spec.

After 4X drains the oil still looks pretty dark. I know these transmissions are made out of glass so I hope these drain & fills keeps it from blowing up while I own this car. I mostly ride my motorcycle when it gets nice out so the car will just sit in the garage on most days.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

 

[bowlofturtle]

after 4x on a drain and fill. I think you are just wasting money.

Yes they are glass but true glass AT were from 98-03, 04+ had some upgrades but still more failures then preferred.

I would probably just done a D and F once a year now.

 

[Sparky16]

When I bought a used 2015 MDX at 86,000 miles a few years ago, the ATF looked pretty dark and burned. But after d&f 4 times with Honda DW-1 plus ATF filter change , ATF looked totally cleaned up. No idea if the Honda DW-1 made the difference, but I wouldn't use anything else on this MDX. Picture below shows the progress.

 

[Finklejag]

I also changed the filter on it. I heard the 07-08 got the upgraded transmission in this generation?

 

[wpod]

Oil only extends the life of the quality components it won't stop the failure of low quality or under engineered parts.

 

[Brian123]

Something tells me you are mixing old ATF with new ATF, back in the day I would get 3 people, 1 in the car, 1 pouring the ATF, and the other person draining the atf into a pan. Basically you are doing a trans flush by taking 1 of the cooler lines off and pouring in new trans fluid and pumping out old fluid.

I did the same thing on a 98 Monte Carlo with the coolant, it held 13 quarts or so, basically took the thermostat out and the upper radiator hose off, ended up flushing out 20 quarts of fluid. Now I did do your mixing thing on the power steering, ended up using 6 quarts of fluid, and that fluid was a dark brown. You can either do what I did or just leave things the way they are.

Here is a thought, of course I could be wrong, maybe the dipstick is dirty because the inside of the dipstick tube is dirty.

 

[Trav]

Way too much trouble and fluid, a line of fluid exchange is easy and is as a complete a change as you can hope for using much less fluid.

 

[ctechbob]

I also changed the filter on it. I heard the 07-08 got the upgraded transmission in this generation?

Correct, although even with my 'upgraded' trans I still do a single D&F with every other oil change. Works out to a 3x D&F over 30k or so.

 

[The Critic]

Way too much trouble and fluid, a line of fluid exchange is easy and is as a complete a change as you can hope for using much less fluid.

Not all of those have lines that are accessible for a fluid exchange.

 

[Trav]

It doesnt use a cooler either external or in the radiator?

 

[The Critic]

It doesnt use a cooler either external or in the radiator?

Not sure about this particular unit, but some of them use a pancake type cooler on the exterior of the unit and a traditional line flush is not possible due to the type of connections used.

I stopped looking....years ago. Now I just do the 3x drain and refill and call it good. This way, a dealer cannot tell the customer that the trans service was done incorrectly.

 

[Hall]

it will get the cheapest oil that meets the Honda spec.

No ATF meets Honda's spec except their own DW-1 or Z-1. Valvoline, Idemitsu, etc "recommend" their fluids for Honda applications and they can do just fine.

 

[Koainn]

I bought my 06 Acura TL off of a friend. When I bought it 5 months ago it had 159K. It nows has 161K. I’m the 3rd owner and it looks like the first owner and my friend never changed the transmission fluid since it was pretty dark and smelled burnt. I bought 9 quarts of Maxlife on sale at Napa for $5.48 back in September. I did 3X drain & fills. The oil on the dipstick was still dark after that.

I was going to stick with Maxlife but Walmart showed two different stores near me in stock and both were out. So i picked up the Idemitsu at Vatozone for $7.69 a quart. If I bought this car new, I would’ve used the Honda fluid from the start, but since I bought the car with 159K, it will get the cheapest oil that meets the Honda spec.

After 4X drains the oil still looks pretty dark. I know these transmissions are made out of glass so I hope these drain & fills keeps it from blowing up while I own this car. I mostly ride my motorcycle when it gets nice out so the car will just sit in the garage on most days. View attachment 90107View attachment 90108View attachment 90109

I had an 07 tl and everyone on acurazine that used higher weight atf than the z1 never had problems. There were a lot of complaints about the lower viscosity when they made the change from Dlll and guys even added a quart or two of type f oil to push up the viscosity. I didn't I just used Castrol transmax and never had problems with my trans...had the car for 12 years.

The people on acurazine will be more help than the ones here.

 

[OILJUNKIE]

I bought my 06 Acura TL off of a friend. When I bought it 5 months ago it had 159K. It nows has 161K. I’m the 3rd owner and it looks like the first owner and my friend never changed the transmission fluid since it was pretty dark and smelled burnt. I bought 9 quarts of Maxlife on sale at Napa for $5.48 back in September. I did 3X drain & fills. The oil on the dipstick was still dark after that.

I was going to stick with Maxlife but Walmart showed two different stores near me in stock and both were out. So i picked up the Idemitsu at Vatozone for $7.69 a quart. If I bought this car new, I would’ve used the Honda fluid from the start, but since I bought the car with 159K, it will get the cheapest oil that meets the Honda spec.

After 4X drains the oil still looks pretty dark. I know these transmissions are made out of glass so I hope these drain & fills keeps it from blowing up while I own this car. I mostly ride my motorcycle when it gets nice out so the car will just sit in the garage on most days. View attachment 90107View attachment 90108View attachment 90109

Vatozone I love it. Very clean engine.

 

[paulo57509]

I no longer do multiple D/F's anymore on transmissions. At least not with one-size-fits-all ATF's. I did a 3x D/F and a filter change on the Safari back in 2012 with ST Dex/Merc swill. Two years and 7k miles later, this happened. No way to tell if it was the D/F's , fluid or it was just its time to explode. The rebuild contains straight Valvoline Dex-VI.

GM 4-speed OD transmissions - cooking 3-4 clutches since 1982.

I seem to recall this happened to another member. Every chance he got, he was hating on Valvoline Max-Life.

 

[Dman]

I bet you could just do a drain and fill every 30k from now on and be good. 4 drain and fills is almost equal to a flush.

 

[Hall]

I did a 3x D/F and a filter change on the Safari back in 2012 with ST Dex/Merc swill. Two years and 7k miles later, this happened.

The cleanest, freshest fluid in the world won't prevent a true mechanical failure

 

[Chris Meutsch]

The cleanest, freshest fluid in the world won't prevent a true mechanical failure

Agreed. I did 30k D/F's on my CR-V since new, and eventually, the trans wore out. It still moved and shifted but you have to be gentle to get it to not slip. 284k before I traded it on the 4Runner.

 

[Rand]

The people on acurazine will be more help than the ones here.

Such wisdom from a month old member.


as mentioned it wont hurt but maybe just a money flush to do that many.