mvanbv00

I have three questions. This weekend I am going to change my own oil for the first time and also drain and refill my aft.

1. I went to pep boys and got 5 quarts of Mobil 1 and a Mobil 1 filter for $30 (saved $26). I have 5 quarts of 10w-30 and 5 quarts of 5w-20. Which one should I use? Many people on this board say that the 5w-20 is too thin in the summer and the 10w-30 is too thick for cold starts. Which one should I use. Pep Boys was out of the 5w-30 which is what I was going to get.

2. The Honda dealership doesn't carry the ATF-Z1 anymore so I had to get the DW1. Should I do one drain and refill or should I do 3 to flush out all of the old Z1? Also, if I do the 3 drains and refills should I go an oil change between each drain and refill or do it all in one weekend?

3. How is the DW1 working for others that have switched? My tranny has 63,xxx miles and has been slipping in 3rd (40-50mph) for about 15-20,000 miles. Do you expect the slipping to get worse or stay the same?

2005civiclx

its summer so the 10w-30 will be fine and you shouldnt have any problems.

and i dont know too much about the differences between the atf but im sure somebody will be in here soon to answer that.

mvanbv00

Thanks for the quick reply. Will the 5w-20 be fine in my girlfriends cavalier? Or should I save that for the winter for my car and make her buy her own oil?

2005civiclx

i'd say make her buy her own unless you're tryin to get some but idk what type of oil it takes. should say on the cap or in the manual and if it does refer back to the beginning of my post lol.

mvanbv00

Anyone have an answer for my atf question? Should I do 1 drain and refill or 3?

7genmarathon

iTrader: (1)

I put in ATF-Z1 back during spreak break. I haven't had problems, shifting sounds as usual. It looks more viscous in my opinion, and synthetic.

I wanted to put DW1 in but Honda didnt carry it so I really didnt have a choice at that moment.

Just drain/fill once. Then wait a couple months for the new atf to blend with the old, and repeat.

MindBomber

I'm going to be honest, I'm not quite sure what to recommend for putting DW-1 in a Z-1 transmission. If you search you'll see that I've advocated many times to not do more than a single drain and refill at a time, and that if more than a 3 quart change is necessary then to wait till the next oil change to do another single drain and fill.

My advice would still be to not do a complete flush at once and wait till the next oil change to do another, but monitor the shifting of the transmission carefully and if the quality degrades beyond where it was before do another two drain and fills in short succession.

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

unfortunately z1 is being replaced so pretty soon dw1 will be the only option. i would start slow and only do one drain and fill at a time, a year apart. it will give the new fluid a chance to mix with old and hopefully not cause too much damage.

7genmarathon

iTrader: (1)

Oh haha I flipped ATF-z1 and DW1 in my earlier post. Brainfart.

kbook

Could somebody explain about gear slipping? when the gear slips, how does the engine reacts? the RPM goes up? The reason that I am asking is that I don't feel right about the trans.

Too Tall

A tranny doesn't slip for 15K miles, it usually self destructs in a few miles once it starts slipping. If it does slip, the oil burns and turns dark very quickly, again within a few miles.

If your tranny fluid is burnt, black in color and smells burnt, your only choice is to drain it all out at once, 3 even 4, drain and refills at once. Get the wheels off the ground and run through the gears in between each drain and refill. If you get lucky, you'll be OK, if not, you'll end up rebuilding the tranny anyway.

Despite of all the mixed opinions about whether the two different oils are compatible or not, Honda seems to think they are. If they are not, there will be a lot of dead transmissions real soon.

If your tranny oil is relatively clean, you can try only one drain and refill each with a few thousand miles in between.

Put a cup of the 10w- 30 and 5 w-20 in the freezer overnight. See if one is thicker and pours out slower in the morning. I suspect it has to get a lot colder than freezing before there is any real difference. But it never gets that cold where I live, so I have never bothered with that experiment.

I run 5w-30 full synthetic in my 07, only because I just don't believe 5w-20 is thick enough. The only difference I noticed was the engine ran quieter with 5w-30.

MindBomber

Oh really?

Then how do you explain all the members with clutches that slip between second and third gear, but whose transmissions have lasted tens of thousands of miles after the symptoms arised?

gearbox

iTrader: (95)

my trans has been slipping when shifting to 3rd for 50,000 miles and hasnt gotten worse. again, the honda trans fluid i change yearly is in very good condition. darker red but not burnt and not black. slipping means the car revs up and doesnt move any faster when you would expect the shift to occur. lets say you are starting from a stop and from previous driving you have a feeling that the trans will shift at 3k rpms. instead of a quick shift to 2nd, the rpms rev up to 4k rpms as if you knocked the gear shift into neutral and then back in drive. basically its a one second feeling of the car missing the gear and the rpms going up past where they should. then the shift happens after a one second delay. cold slipping (before the trans fluid is warmed up) is the start of problems. but if the car drives normally once warmed up then you are prolly not in immediate danger of blowing it up. when it starts slipping when hot, then you have a serious issue and you might only have a few days or few weeks before it goes out and car wont move.

kbook

Thanks gearbox. That cleared up my curiosity.

mvanbv00,

follow gearbox's recommendation and once you do one drain/fill, you should observe the transmission shifting. I probably change mine pretty soon. I planned to do one and wait another 5K so I can change together with the engine oil.

Too Tall,

I think the two different freezing point doesn't tell the whole story. For instance, if I put 10w-40 drive at high RPM who know. Our engines might be damaged because of the viscosity. The oil might not flow into the small pathway in the engine or your pump is dead because of thicker viscosity of the oil.

That's just remind me of the Rotella 5w-40, somebody here mentioned before that this is a good oil.

As long as they have the right range of viscosity + essential additives, for the transmission, I will not worry.

Too Tall

IN MY OPINION ....

most of the Honda automatic tranny problems are probably due to over confidence in Honda tranny oil, and not changing the tranny oil before it goes bad.

Z1 is not that good an oil, it should be completely drained out at 30,000 miles, or less. Doing one drain and refill at 30,000 miles leaves a lot of old oil behind. That starts gumming up everything inside the transmission.

Generally, the shifting modulators and hydraulic circuits get gummed up first, and that starts to cause delayed shifts between gears. If you get an increase in engine rpm between shifts, this is likely the problem and you need to change out ALL the tranny fluid as soon as possible because the tranny fluid is more gum than fluid.

There are advantages and disadvantages of doing one drain and refill at a time, or 3 at once. The worse the condition of the fluid, the more important it is to get it all out as quickly as possible.

http://www.amsoil.com/performancetes...veOilTest.aspx

Look at the cold pour point tests in this link. Even the worst 10w-30 oil has a cold pour point of -27 degrees F. This test relates to how cold it has to be to get the oil so thick it won't pour out of a beaker. It does not indicate there will not be any damage if you try to start your car at -27 F.

If you want to debate the difference between 5w and 10w oil for cold weather starts, you have to indicate at what temperatures you are trying to compare. There won't be much difference at freezing, but there will be when you get a lot colder. Once it gets to - F, you might as well get some type of engine or oil heater instead of relying on winter viscosity of the oil.

mvanbv00

I finally did the oil change and ATF drain and refill. The drain plug for the trans is a bitch to get off. I tried just a ratchet at first with no luck. then I got a breaker bar and still had no luck. My friends dad tried a 2.5 inch pipe to get even more torque and we still couldn't get it. We had to heat it with a propane torch and then the 2.5 pipe barely got it.

The trans shifts a little bit smoother with the DW1, but that could be due to the fact that I just did the first drain and refill at 60,000 miles. Normally when I'm going 40-55 and I let off the gas completely and I get back on the accelerator the car jerks but not anymore. That was the most noticeable difference to me.