ATF alternative

[F22BPR]

I know the best reccomended ATF is the OEM Honda, but is there another alternative of fluid for a rebuilt tranny? Thanks.

[wed3k]

there is no alternative.

[deevergote]

Of course there's an alternative!



Acura ATF.

[904drACCORDMANG]

Of course there's an alternative!



Acura ATF.

[Leung]

That's a good dealer there in Boston, Bernardi.

[F22BPR]

Ok, so you think any other brand that you buy is useless or wack?.

[wed3k]

it's not useless but with a rebuilt transmission, i would wonder how long it would last? you should try it out and let us know.

[deevergote]

Other fluids aren't formulated to work properly in a Honda gearbox. Those that run Honda fluids run for a very long time. Those that run cheaper brands often fail.
That's enough evidence for me to spend the couple extra dollars on Honda fluid.


Any ATF of the right viscosity will work, for the most part. It will lubricate the transmission. However, you don't know how long it will last... or if that fluid is allowing more wear than Honda fluid would. The only way to determine if another fluid is good or bad is to allow it to destroy your transmission. If your gearbox dies, the fluid is no good.

But we know what is good. We know what works. There's no reason to use anything else.



Does that say "wack" clearly enough?

[bcjammerx]

can anyone actually PROVE the honda atf protects better than fully synthetic atf and better than all the regular ATF's?

As far as I know no one has...we just keep saying "Honda fluid is better"...why? Because Honda says so...that is not a good reason. We make demands for proof any time someone makes such claims

I know plenty of people that use alternative atf fluids...not the generic no name brands but not Honda's overpriced stuff either...they do not have issues.

of course there are also folks that say they DO have issues...

I would much prefer to see some sort of proof showing z1 is better than all before I start saying such...all seems like hear-say

[YK86]

I have no "proof", just hands on experience so take it for whatever it's worth. For protection, I don't really think there is a difference. But content wise, Honda atf has special friction modifiers specially formulated for Hondas that others don't. I work on mainly 80's and 90's Hondas/Acuras and I've seen so many at's shift poorly from the wrong atf.

80% of the time the owner complains of a slipping or weird shifting tranny, a simple drain and fill with Honda atf fixed the problem. Some were just lack of maintenance, some had JUST spend $$ at Mr. Lube type places or they did their own atf drain and fill where they didn't use Honda atf.

Another 10% were fixed by adding Lubegard atf additive to Honda ATF (there was a service bulletin saying to use this stuff on hard shifting trannys so I tried it and it worked). The remaining 10% actually had a bad tranny. I don't remember how many I've worked on but I'd estimate it at around 50 different cars so it's not like 80%=4 out of 5 cars lol.

I have never tried performance synthetic atf from other brands in a Honda (I've only used Redline atf in a VW), but more often than not, the generic store brand atf and Castrol stuff did not work very well (mainly slipping real bad, kinda makes sense since the generic stuff is "missing" the friction modifiers Honda stuff has).

It's actually worked in my favor before though. I bought a 86 Accord EXi 8 years ago for $200 that shifted like crap and the owner didn't want to spend thousands rebuilding the tranny and just wanted it gone. Limped it home, did a drain and fill, and it was shifting like a brand new tranny. So after investing less than $20 (everything else in the car was good), I flipped it for $1200 a couple weeks later.

I get my Honda atf for about $6 Canadian a bottle. The Redline was about $10 a bottle and Mobile 1/Castrol/store brand usually run about $5 to $8 so I don't feel Honda atf is overpriced at all especially considering you only use roughly 3 bottles or less per drain and fill. But prices in the US or even between dealers might be different.

[bcjammerx]

I have heard that;
honda does not "make" their fluids...they are made by a company...this company actually makes additives and fluids for other companies, such as castrol, gmc...etc

I have actually emailed this company to ask...not sure if they will respond afton chemicals, parent company is newmarket. I can not find anything concrete on this...just a few forum posts which is why i emailed them. That information may not be "available" to the public.

Now of course that does not really mean much, after all, even if true the formula for castrol could be different for honda

[deevergote]

That's absolutely correct. Honda does not "make" the fluid. However, it is made for them acording to their specifications.

I'm sure there are other fluids that might work just as well. But we KNOW the Honda fluid works, because it's designed to do so. Without extensive knowledge of the chemical makeup of various ATF, and the ability to compare them theoretically... the only way to find out what's good and what isn't is long term trial and error... which is highly impractical.

ATF should be changed every 15-30k, depending on driving conditions. $20 or so for fluid once or twice a year won't kill anyone. We pay more than that to fuel the car for a week!