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Hey guys,

This weekend I plan to drive 2 hours to my nearest Honda Service Department so I can have my automatic transmission flushed & refilled. I drive a 02 Civic Ex w/ 30,000 miles........I have the choice of a complete drain and refill for $129 or half of the fluid flushed & refilled with ATF+4 for $59 (they recommended the $59 service b/c of low miles). My transmission hasn't given me any problems, but I want to prolong the life of it so what do you guys think? Go for the full service or half? Also I thought there was a filter, but the service tech said it is a filterless system.......didn't know that. The reason why I'm after a tranny service is because the shifting from park to reverse or to drive is a little too easy to glide to gears......not loose, but I would like the shifting to be a little more tight (sorry for the poor terminology I'm using to describe the symtoms).

Next, if anyone can shed some light on this, but I heard the a/c system should be drained and refilled every 2.5 years. My car is 3 years old, a/c works good (not ice cold), and the a/c has a bad odor coming out of the vents. Is it a little premature to get the a/c serviced? I know the saying if it's not broke, then don't fix it, but I want to make sure my a/c components are performing at the most optimal level possible.

Last, the coolant. Since I'm taking a long trip to the dealer, should I go ahead and get the coolant system flushed? The Honda tech recommended I should, but I know these dealerships are after money too. I have never had not one single problem with the car overheating nor has the coolant needle ever rose above the halfway mark........I'm pretty satisfied with it. But if I want to enjoy years of this kind of performance, should I flush the coolant as the car has reached 30,000 miles?

I hope some of you guys can point me in the right direction. I don't mind getting the tranny serviced as I would like to jump on this due to the Civic hitting 30,000 miles. But the a/c service is over a $100 which I could get it cheaper for $60 at FireStone, but I would want a proffesional working on my a/c system..........their not the cheapest parts to repair.

As for the coolant, maybe its a little early because its only 3 years old and have 30,000 miles, but eventually I'll have to get around the coolant. So what do you guys think? I would love to take my Civic to Goodyear to flush and refill the a/c & coolant, but maybe you guys can advice me not to risk it unless I go to a certified Honda tech.

 
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Your car does not take ATF+4. It takes Honda ATF Z1. If they intend on usin ATF+4 on your car, head to another dealer, as you're in for problems down the road. it is not the proper ATF fluid for your transmission. There is also no filter for the Honda transmission. As for the air conditioning, the A/C is a closed system. It never needs to be drained and refilled as a part of any maintenance procedure. If it ever needs to be refilled, it is because you have a leak and that leak has to be repaired before being refilled.

 
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Everything there except doing an AC service can be done yourself for cheap. Go buy yourself 3 bottles of ATF fluid from honda, and a gallon of coolant and drain and refill both yourself. Will cost you about $40 at the most depending on how much each item runs.
As for the AC service, all that is done is a recovery and recharge which just removes any moisture that has accumulated in the AC system over time. They will remove the refirgerant and put the system in a vacuum for up to 30 minutes. Then add the refirgerant back in. And then check for leaks. Alot of shops recommend it once a year, but every few years I think is ok. They also check out for any other problems that you might have that you are unaware of, or catch any problems before they occur. I have never done it on my car and after 3 years and 100,000 miles, the AC still works great.

 
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Wow great info guys!

I never knew our transmissions used another type of fluid. I thought ATF+4 was the best to use in a transmission.

As for the coolant, well I could drain it myself, but heard a flush is more beneficial down the road to take out anything harmful. The same with the transmission to rid any metal scraps floating around the pan.

As for the a/c, I knew it was a closed system, but would like to clean out any moisture. Hmmm maybe I'm going overboard with all of this maintence, but since my warranty expired, I'd like to take care of things that eventually will rise up in the future all at once..........no more going two years from now to wait an hour or two. Time is precious, and so is my car to me.

 
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There is an a/c filter drier which draws moisture out of the refrigerant during the system's lifetime. I still haven't heard of anybody around here routinely doing an a/c service if everything is working.

 
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So it's best to save my money and time by putting the a/c service on hold. As for the coolant, any suggestions on when that should be changed? Honda Tech recommended 30,000 miles.

 
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I really dont think you need to do the AC service yet. As for the coolant, the manaul recommends changing it at 100,000 miles, but I think thats BS and I changed mine at around 50K and the old fluid that came out was filthy as hell. Like any fluid, overtime it loses its ability to do its job. Now changing the coolant is the easiest thing in the world. It is easier then changing your oil. On the bottom of the radiator there is a drain plug, its a small plastic butterfly looking plug that you turn to remove the coolant from the radiator. then you can fill it right back up with fresh coolant. takes about 5-10 minutes to do. Dont pay a shop to do whats simple. Same as the tranny fluid, take 5-10 minutes to do.

 
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Hey Streetglower, I appreciate the suggestions, but do you think maybe we're underestimating the significance of a transmission flush? If you drain the fluid, that doesn't guarantee metal shavings will come out. You would have to drop the pan to complete the job.

As for the coolant, the only reason why a flush would be needed such as in your situation is because there is a lot of gunk and a flush would rinse it out. Now if you just drain the fluid, then that brown gunk and whatever sticks to the walls of the coolant tank.

In my situation, I looked into the coolant tank and its still clean. I could follow your advice Streetglow and drain the coolant. A flush is probably not needed if I drain it now because the car hasn't been driven enough. But if I wait another 20,000 miles then things could be different.

But that tranny is what I'm watching out for because of the metal shavings that could be floating around. A flush would be needed.

 
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There is no pan on the transmission. It is a transaxle with a bolt on the bottom to drain fluid. Normally what is done is you drain the fluid, fill it back up, drive it around for 10 minutes or so, then drain it again and refill and drive around again and drain and refill again. It is usually done 3-4 times to get everything out. This is what honda does, or says they do. I dont think they do tranny flushes. Now I am no tranny expert at auto trannies, but I have been told countless times that flushing the tranny is bad for it. It does replace the fluid in the torque converter though. You would have to call honda and ask them or wait till someone wth better knowledge in that area responds. Now I have never done it there mothod, just every 20K miles or so I just drain and refill it. And my tranny works fine.

As for the coolant, I had it flushed my first time, but from the looks of it it just removes the coolant from the radiator and at the same time adds fresh fluid in, which can be done yourself. To get more depth with changing it what I did the second time I changed it was drain the coolant from the radiator, and also drain the coolant from the reserve resovior, and then I added some flushing stuff from prestone to the radiator with water and turned the car on full heat and let it run for 10 minutes, then drained it again, filled the radiator with water, run again for 10 minutes, then drain and refill with honda type 2 coolant and let the car run and keep topping off till full. I did that method and have had no problems. You can call a shop and ask what a flush consists of doing, but the ways I did it was to save money.

 
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Can't beat that kind of info. I'll see what method of transmission service my Honda tech uses, and go from there. But if anything, I'll need to take a drive so I can buy the tranny fluid & coolant. Most likely I'll go with the transmission service (drain & refill) because my front bumper is too low to get access to the bolt plus I don't want to mess with the tranny too much.

As for the coolant, GoodYear charges $30 if I bring my own coolant & Prestone flush bottle so instead of making a mess, I'll get them to the coolant flush for me.

A few months ago my boyfriend had his Intrepid's coolant flushed at GoodYear and was telling me how glad he was to not mess with it. GoodYear's method of flushing coincides with your method Streetglow so I think I'll take take that avenue to save me money. It might take longer going to two different places, but I'll save me $100 in the process. Oh and I better make sure they use distilled water! Well thats pretty much it guys, I sure do appreciate the help. I learned alot about my car in this thread.

 
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Okay, a couple of things...

Like Streetglower said, you can't flush the auto tranny in the civic. Now your bf's Intrepid you can because there is a transmision cooler. So they simply tap into those line and allow the car to run in neutral and pump the tranny fluid out, as the fluid is pumped out, they pump new fluid in at the same rate, pretty neat trick and works well. To bad it can't be done on a civic since there is no tranny intercooler though, so you're stuck with just the drain and fill a few times method.

In the area of coolant flushing, agian the Intrepid is a weird case, in this case it's REALLY weird. The intrepid run on a fully presurized system, even the resivor is pressurized. Infact it runs at higher than normal presures, as a result there is no way to drian the radiator, small plugs would fail under these conditions. The only way to actually change the coolant in a Intrepid is to do a flush. The civic is much user friendly in that you don't have to do a flush to change the fluid. I would think that changing the raditor fluid would be more than enough in the case of the civic. Agian, the coolant in the civic is not under the stress that the coolant is under in the Intrepid.

I had an Intrepid, hence why I know so much about them... one of the worst POS I ever had too. The Intrepid and civic are 2 totally different beast, when Dodge says their different, they aren't kidding

 
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I can't believe you don't like the Intrepids. I love riding in my bf's 99 Intrepid......picks up quick, very quiet, and very roomy. He has that car so clean and tuned. The ride is much more enjoyable in his car than mine, but I wouldn't trade my car for anything!

So I take it that not even a flush is needed for my car? Hmm I'll take that into consideration. I'm hoping the drain plug for the coolant is near by as my front bumper is too low.

 
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I actually love the Intrepid........ when it ran. It had this starting problem, for some reason on some days it would not start. I could not get it to start either, no matter what I did. Other days it fired right up and ran beutifully, like you said PLENTY of power room blah blah blah, it was a nice car, when it ran lol.

The drain plug (I think) is on the passenger side of the radiator in the lower corner, but that is just based off previous Honda's I've had, never had a 7thgen long enough to change the coolant. It's nice to look under to see it, but worse comes to worse, as long as you can fit your arm under the bumer, you can probably get it.