About 3 weeks ago I purchased a 1996 Accord EX auto V6 with 136k miles from my brother who had it garaged since he moved out of town on a business oppurtunity in September '06. The day I took the car out for the first time the car was running great. I live in Connecticut and the first few days in April it felt like summertime already because it was so warm. I did not experience any problems what so ever. The car was shifting well, and accelorating even better, really smooth when in idle, just great all around. I've only owned American cars in the past so it definately felt better driving this car than what I was used to. About a week 1/2 later my father and I checked the oils again just to make sure everything was okay, and we noticed the transmission fluid was a little low. It needed about a quart so he went down to Autozone and bought some ATF that read it was for Import vehicles such as Hondas. We put it in and a few days later the car felt drastically different when accelorating, shifting, etc. Keep in mind the warm weather did not last as it got cold again right around the time when we added the ATF. So I came to the net to find forums because it was killing me that the car was not running the way it was when I first took it out. And found this forum so I searched and found that most people said they only use Honda Genuine ATF. So a few days went buy with the Autozone purchased ATF in until I was able to get down to the local Honda dealer and purchase some ATF-Z1. We drained out all the old fluid and put some of ATF-Z1 and right away I noticed a difference, but it was still not like when I first purchased the car. The car does not idle the same way it used to now either. When in park it's a little rough but when in drive and at a light or stop sign, its seems to be even worse. I opened up the hood today with the car on and the engine was shaking a little bit. Don't get me wrong, it's nothing that I can't live but I want the car to run the best it can and I can't seem to stop thinking about when I'm driving the car. The only other thing I have done besides the ATF fill was add some air to the tires because the tire pressure was a little low on all four wheels. I am in no way a gear head or any kind of auto expert, I just need a little advise on what I can do to improve the way the car drives. What should I do next to to possibly fix my problems?

 

It says in my book that to properly replace the trans. oil you have to do it multiple times: do it once, drive a little, and change again, ...3 times and then change the 4'th time which is the final one. This way all the fluid should have been changed.
Usually they only do it once even at dealer.

 

Hmmmm, American cars you check the trans fluid with the engine running.
Hondas you check the trans fluid level with engine off.