Tsomecivic

2014 Civic LX Automatic. I have no clue what this is or what happened. I was checking my brake fluid during a brake job and noticed some fluid in an area that has some sort of rubber seal popped. Beyond just pushing it back in; what is this seal even on, what causes this, what should i do to fix it. Dash shows no check engine light and seems to be running fine.

Tsomecivic

Update: what is this? What does it do?

ezone

Clean the dirt off that plug and put it back into the hole ASAP

Did you have a recent trans fluid (CVT fluid) service done? SOMEone probably forgot to put the plug back in after filling it. Damn rookies LOL

Tsomecivic

Dang. I got the car at about 40,000 miles and now it's at 50,000. I had some body work done on the front but no one should of touched it since I purchased the car, I can see that there is still some fluid in there. Im taking the car to a trusted mechanic. Do you think i'm just looking at getting a transmission flush or fluid change? Car seems to be running fine as far as I can tell doesn't seem to have any problems. I get car up to eighty on the freeway and it seems nice and smooth still. Is there any chance this popped out because of high pressure or other problems or was it definitely just some dummy not putting it back in?

Tsomecivic

My mechanic said right away that the part is the actual dipstick, which explains why I couldn't find the dipstick to check transmission level fluid. Inside was super clean but super low so hopefully i'm only looking at a fluid and filter change. Thanks a ton Ezone for pointing me in the right direction.

ezone

Your mechanic does not know enough about this car.
THERE WAS NEVER ANY DIPSTICK IN THIS TRANSMISSION!

You cannot look into the hole and see any fluid level.
There is no 'filter change' during a typical fluid service.

There is plenty of real service information available for a competent mechanic to be able to correctly check the trans fluid level and service the unit with the manufacturers' specified procedures and fluids, but one must first understand this is not a traditional automatic trans in the first place and published procedures must be followed exactly to do this correctly.

This CVT unit requires a very specialized fluid (HCF-2) available at any Honda dealership parts department. AFAIK as of yet the aftermarket does not have any fluid that is compatible with this trans.
This transmission will be ruined if someone pours in regular ATF.
It MAY be damaged by overfilling or underfilling the fluid.
That could be costing about 5 grand if you or someone else doesn't know what they are doing and causes serious damage.

printraveler

I have a 2014 Civic with 100,000 miles and now the trans filler cap blows off. At first, I blamed the folks that did the oil change, but after 500 miles of interstate driving, it was off again. And then again. Thankfully if falls on top and does not go out on the road. Some kind of design flaw it seems. After x number of miles, pressure (?) builds up in the trans and blows the filler cap off. Needless to say, I had to apologize to my oil change folks. I understand this is becoming a rather common problem with the little rubber plug. What happened to the real dipstick that stayed in?