Ways to prolong the life of our AT tranny

I thought I should share with you guys about what I do everyday to stay away from having AT issues. I hope this would help you guys, especially for members who just got their AT Accords recently.

-Getting out of your car-
1. Shift to N
2. Pull E-brake
3. Foot off the break (if car keeps moving further, pull E-brake harder)
4. Turn off your engine to 1st stage←(where audio can be on/off)
5. Shift to P
6. Pull out your key from the ignition

-Getting in for a drive-
1. Shift to N by using your key on the shifter panel*
2. Turn engine on
3. Foot on break
4. Shift to D / R, however you get out
5. Release E-break
6.
(* This helps out the stress applied into your tranny b/c the car shakes when you turn your engine on.) Have you heard some sort of a heavy "click" from your shifter when you turn your engine on? If you have, that's the sound of force being applied to your tranny if it's shifted to P.


The idea is to stay away from applying an excessive weight of your vehicle into your transmission. I've seen many people (in general) that aren't using their e-brakes to park their cars (even some auto mechanics don't do that), but I think it is very crucial that we use e-brake, especially for our AT 6gens.

Mine is about 120K miles and it had a tiny jerking problem (from R to D), but it stopped doing this ever since I started to operate my car with these methods.

Hope this helps some of you. (This might also prolong your prospective project of a manual swap lol.)

 

I have 208k miles on my Auto Trans (V6 Sedan) and it's never had a problem. Knock on wood, of course.

Maybe the key is that I flushed and re-filled the trans fluid at 75k, then drained and filled it again every 60k afterward.

 

Good info man

 

I'm not sure if shifting the tranny dry when getting back into it is a good or a bad thing.
Personally what I do and would suggest would be...

-Getting out of your car-
...park the car
...while holding the foot brakes shift to N and put the hand brake up
...let go of the foot brakes and let the car roll a few mm until the parking brake grabs it
...press the foot brakes again, shift to R and let it go in and then to Park and turn the car off and remove your foot from the foot brakes (the car is being held by the ebrake)

-Getting in for a drive and reversing out-
...start the car and give it 1-2 mins to warm or whatever your routine is
...press foot brakes and shift to R
...lower hand brake , release foot bake and about your way you go

-Getting in for a drive and going out forward-
...start the car and give it 1-2 mins to warm or whatever your routine is
...press foot brakes and shift to R and let it go into gear, shift to N then shift to D and let it go into gear
...lower hand brake , release foot bake and about your way you go


...the idea is to allow the parking brake to hold the car when parked and not put a strain on the tranny. In addition to allow each gear to go in and not do one of those fly by shifts where people go From P to D in less then a second.
...if you are hearing/feeling a thump when you turn the car on in the morning that is coming from your engine mount, not your tranny

 

I'm having a hard time understanding how or why the e-brake and/or ignition of the engine has anything to do with the tranny.

I'd rather flush it every 30-50k.

 

I only do the e-drake on a hill so the axles aren't fighting each other

 

In what I posted above all that is happening is that when you park the ebrake is what's holding the car and no force is put on the tranny.

If you do not know what i'm talkin about...park your car on any incline without using the ebrake, when you restart it you'll hear quite the loud thud as you switch out of park.

and you should be drain/refilling it once a year

 

Yes. Changing AT fluid is also the big key to prolong its life. I can't recall the regular service intervals at the top of my head, but I personally think it's sooner the better for our AT 6gens than what the manufacture suggests. I change mine whenever my tranny starts to shift hard.

Thank you, sir.

About shifting tranny dry is a good question. It's not causing me any issues so far. Maybe someone can give us any inputs on that.

About that thump, I thought it was from the tranny. Thanks for clearing it out.

And thank you for clearing out Mikey's concern.

 

once a year is overkill!! they would never even reccomend that at the factory.

 

^Yeah, because Honda always knows what they're talking about.

Found this post I wrote a few years ago, haha. Take it for what you will. God I do not miss having an auto.

I remember I would use D3 when going 45mph or less, especially on hilly roads or roads with a lot of stop signs/lights, to keep the transmission from gear hunting. The revs weren’t high at that speed either. Not sure if everything I did was essential, but I do think it helped, and my tranny was still operating fine at 133k miles when I took it out. So I'd do it again.

And obviously, never accelerate hard from a dead stop.