Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
I experienced no change after a drain-and-fill of Honda OEM ATF (DW-1) and nothing changed. The car shifted well as when we first bought it with 60k miles.
It may have been coincidence, but after a single drain-and-fill using MaxLife I started experiencing a 1-2 flair and minor other oddities; no major changes, but very noticeable.
After 2 more drain-and-fill with OEM fluid it's back to normal. Unfortunately, my data is ruined, because I took the car into the dealer shortly after the 1st drain-and-fill for them to apply a TCM update, which could very well be the cause of the better shifting.
Unfortunately, the degraded shifting coincided with the MaxLife, so I will no longer consider anything but Honda DW-1.
MaxLife is NOT rated for use in a DW-1 specced Honda transmisson unit. Only Z-1 rated specs. Look on their label, it is NOT listed as being compatible with DW-1 fluid.
Castrol TransMax IMV ATF is specced for BOTH DW-1 and Z-1 applications.
The 2008 factory fill is Z-1, which was back-spec'd for DW-1. Z-1 is no longer made, as DW-1 supersedes Z-1. Infer from that what you will, but many have posted great results with MaxLife in their Hondas, which is why I used it. This wasn't a quick search, but after reading here over a couple of years.
The previous owner had a receipt for an ATF change at 30k miles, but it didn't list which fluid, Z-1 or DW-1. I changed it soon after buying the car at 60k miles, with no noted change in shift quality.
I noticed the shift issues directly after a drain-and-fill using MaxLife, and an improvement directly after a drain-and-fill with DW-1. As I mentioned, I also had the dealer update the TCM, so there's more than one data point to consider.
