After I purchased my car, I changed out the transmission fluid for Royal Purple and have been using it for a while. Recently, I started to experience some rigidity in my shifting (to put it nicely). I looked around at what the most popular fluid was and found that the new green label Honda MTF was awesome, so I swapped out my trans fluid. It's getting a little cold, and if the fluid hasn't warmed up, shifting into gear just to move from my parking spot is quite the battle. Anyone else have this problem with the Honda MTF?
I have no doubt that the synchro's in the transmission have their own problems, but it was quite a change from the Royal Purple to the Honda.

 

Red cap? When did this come out? I've been using green label and that shit came out last year around this time.

I just looked it up. that's not new stuff, that's old stuff. Or something else.

I suggest you drain it and put white cap, green label in. You should notice a difference over the stuff you're using.

 

up here we get black cap Honda MTF, but it is the same fluid with different packaging. Dunno about red cap Honda MTF, that could be something old or something else.

My car came with Redline MTL when I bought it 3 weeks ago. I didn't care for the way it shifted, so I put in Honda MTF in it about 2 weeks ago and it shifts better IMO. I just drained it again this weekend as you never get all of the old fluid out of the tranny on one drain so you get a mixture in there. The fluid came out with a slight reddish tinge on it as Redline MTL is reddish in colour and that confirmed my suspicion that the fluid still wasn't entirely homogeneous. It now shifts better than it did last week, so all of the fluid should be pretty consistent. Also, I always find that it takes a week or two for the new fluid to start working properly after a drain, I don't know what it is but it always seems to work better after a bit of driving a couple weeks down the road.

Try dumping the fluid again in a week or two and then see how it goes. I'm also removing the shifter and lubricating it this week to make sure that it shifts as best as possible as per the TSB that exists on this matter. You may want to try that as well if you don't mind tinkering around with the console and shifter, you will need some Urea Grease for this.

 

I also just bought my car 2 weeks ago and I just changed the MTF with GM friction Modified 4 days ago and it feels like everyday the shifting gets smoother, I might not do a second flush since its 20 bucks a bottle and I'm only planning on keeping the GM for the winter, when it starts getting warmer Ill switch out to either redline or amsoil. Thanks JFUSION for the shifter lub job idea! Had not thought about it, my car is an '03 with 43k so hopefully I'll feel some improvement.

 

ok, sorry about the confusion. I've got so many fluids laying around I confused the bottles. I used the white cap/green label Honda MTF. It seems to only get bad under very cold temps.
I have some more fluid so in a couple more miles, I will change the fluid again. Thanks for your responses.

 

I used Royal Purple transmission fluid back when I had my Integra GS-R and then my AP1 S2000; never had any problems with it. I just changed the transmission fluid in my AP2 this past weekend with Amsoil MTF and it's been great so far. What temps do you see on a daily basis?

 

I would never put anything in that Honda engineers don't recommend, but that's just me.

 

I've been running Amsoil MTF for the last six months. Works fine but I'd be hard pressed to say it works any better that the Honda MTF it replaced. Next change I'll be returning to the Honda branded MTF.

 

well, right now the temps have been diving into the 30's, so not freezing yet, but cold for GA.