I have a 98 Civic at tranny w/120,000 miles. The Transmission fluid has never been changed. In manual it says change at 90,000 , I know most people say 30,000. I've checked the fluid for color, metal shavings and smell. There are no metal shavings, its brownish pink and does not smell burnt. I am afraid that if i were to do a drain and fill i might damage the tranny since its never been changed. I heard of doing a drain and fill about 3x to get all the gunk out. Is this practical or should i just leave alone. The tranny shifts fine no problems. If i should drain and fill, should i do it multiple times and can i use dexron 3 and then with the last drain and fill use honda atf. Honda atf is just so expensive to buy 8 bottles. Please help with any suggetsions.

 

do what the maual says.

 

Doing what the the manual says would be great but that was 30,000 miles ago. So any other recommendations that are detailed

 

If nothing else, drain and fill it once. I'm not sure about running anything else through it... honda autos are notoriously picky about fluid types. I don't *think* running dextron through it to clean it out would hurt it, as long as you're not driving on it, but I don't know for sure... it could be as bad as mixing brake fluid.