CVT fluid was introduced around 1996 for the Civic HX with the Continuously Variable Transmission. In late 2000, Honda's newsletter, Service News, announced that Honda CVT was no longer available, and ATF-Z1 should be used in CVT transmissions instead. Five years later, we noticed the 2006 Civic dipstick had, "Use only CVT F" printed on it. We called our dealer and found CVT fluid was back. Another $300 in inventory and 14 cubic feet of storage space, hooray. The back of the bottle states CVT fluid is recommended for all Hondas with CVT transmissions (Civic HX, GX, & Hybrid as well as the Insight Hybrid)

This is Honda's ATF-Z1 automatic transmission fluid.

Honda has been using a special transmission fluid for a while. In some of the older Honda manuals, they recommend Dexron II be used when Genuine Honda ATF is not available. Some of our fluid suppliers said that the Honda ATF was just Dexron II (instead of the more popular Dexron III. The older Honda transmissions would often exhibit harsh shifting, especially in the morning, when Dexron III was used, but it did not seem to do any lasting damage.

However, Honda has added some very unusual transmission designs like the CVT (continuously variable transmission) and the new ATF-Z1 is what they recommend were recommending for all Honda transmissions, past and present. We would strongly urge you to use only ATF-Z1 for any modern non-CVT Honda transmission. When you come to Art's, you can be sure that your Honda will be refilled with ATF-Z1