My 2000 Honda Accord LXi (New Zealand version I think it's the same as the American Honda Accord SE) has started to shift oddly lately. The car has done almost 200,000 kilometres (125,000 miles). When accelerating from a stop the car takes a while to change out of first gear and the revs go right up then when it finally changes up into second it will jump hard. It also seems to miss third gear and go straight from second to fourth with a hard jump. It sometimes stays in fourth gear after coming to a complete stop and then when I accelerate it starts off very slow until it finally shifts down into first gear. So I am wanting to change the A/T fluid before I look at fixing the transmission but I have seen some forums that you shouldn't change the fluid when the kilometres are that high. I am happy to have the transmission rehauled or buy a new transmission from a wreckers, for half the price of a rehaul, if I have to as this is a great car it's only the transmission that's letting us down. What everyones recommendations?

 

when I bought a '97 accord AT, the first thing I did were two drain & fills of tranny fluid, separated by a 5 mile drive.

Somewhere I've read that Honda AT's do better with drain & fills (each drain gets maybe 1/3 of fluid?) rather than the (power) flushing approach.

Luck.

 

I would try 3 drain/fills with genuine Honda ATF first. Honda strongly urges against power flushes and with 125k miles, I wouldn't even think about it. The trans. drain plug is on pretty tight so make sure you use a pipe or breaker bar for extra leverage when removing it. Hopefully this helps and you don't need a new tranny.

 

Thanks for the quick replies! I have two more questions to do with what fluid to use and about transmission fluid flush.

The New Zealand owner's manual for the 2000 Honda Accord LXi says to use Dexron II or Dexron III when changing the transmission fluid and mentions nothing about Honda Genuine Transmission Fluid. Dexron II is no longer available so I will obviously not be using that. Also Honda Genuine fluid is very hard to come across in New Zealand and costs at least twice the amount of Dexron III fluid. Should I be using Dexron III like the manual states or try and find some expensive Honda Genuine fluid?

Is this a good guide for a transmission flush on a Honda Accord if I was to do a flush instead of a drain and fill? It looks like it was done on a Honda Accord of about the same year in the video

 

I didn't watch it, but it looks like the method where you use the transmission's own internal pumps to flush fluid.

Honda's don't like "power-flushing" and I think it's for 2 reasons...
- Commercial power-flushing machine has it's own pump. Honda auto-trans doesn't get along with fluid being pumped by external pumps.
- Normally a shop is not willing to dedicate an expensive flushing machine for HONDA ONLY. So as a result, you get non-Honda fluid, and cleaning additives, etc.

Not sure about the owner's manual saying to use Dex fluid. Although I don't like automatics & don't consider myself an expert on them, I've seen A LOT of postings about transmission behavior being improved by using Honda ATF.

 

i found nothing too terrible about what he did, except the compressed air step. it could have loosened up crap in the cooler and may cause some issues down the road. i would have fab'd up some kind of fitting for the return line from the cooler and then let the pump empty the cooler of old fluid.

 

1. there is nothing wrong with using dex3 in your gearbox
2. the only thing you may try cleaning is your solenoids, which are easy to get to. Anything else may be cleaned out with the flow your tranny pump provides, so there is no need to power flush, just drain, fill and drive.
3. change your fluid often, every 35k at max or u grenade ur ****.

if yous till have issues after the flush, look into this ****:
http://www.cliffordsbrighton.com/ima...ix-500x500.jpg

 

extremely poor advice...

 

Well, controversial advice anyway. Like he said, the owner's manual in New Zealand says to use Dexron. For all I know, cars destined for NZ have different kinds of seals & clutches installed???

 

The New Zealand Honda Accord LXi uses a MAXA transmission, if that is of any help