Help! Honda hitch question....

[towrod]

We towed our 1999 Towlite 19TL for 2.5 years with our 2002 Odyssey.  Definitely use a WDH and you will likely want to install airlifts in the rear of the van.  The van towed our rig just fine up through the Sierras to Tahoe and down Hwy 5 to Pismo (got 14 mpg!).  It does ride low though and the 7 pin connector was THE low point and suffered road damage on the way back from Pismo :yikes:
I became very familiar with the wiring on that trip as I needed to make repairs at the reststop with makeshift tools/materials! :cool:

[aw738]

That's true of most all of them. I'm sure you don't mean removing the transmission, but instead removing the pan, then removing the screen from the valve body...DON'T you? I have a rare thing in my Audi's tranny, it's called a drain plug... Of course, it doesn't come with a dipstick - heaven forbid you don't have a specialty scan tool to tell whether you have enough fluid at 75 deg C.

I've sold parts for over 11 years and have confirmed this with a local transmission shop. Most of the ones that I have seen are like that and yes you do have to remove the transmission and dissasemble it to change the filter. They don't have a pan like most transmissions. They do have a drain plug so you can get the fluid out. On some older Honda SUVS you have to have the vehicle off of the ground in gear and remove a sight plug to check the fluid level.

[wynot]

I've sold parts for over 11 years and have confirmed this with a local transmission shop. Most of the ones that I have seen are like that and yes you do have to remove the transmission and dissasemble it to change the filter. They don't have a pan like most transmissions. They do have a drain plug so you can get the fluid out. On some older Honda SUVS you have to have the vehicle off of the ground in gear and remove a sight plug to check the fluid level.

Incredible...
 
But on the other hand, Audi introduced a transmission the same year as my car that no longer requires fluid changes or maintenance (unless of course you damage it).  But breaking an engine and tranny apart to either clean or replace a screen/filter?

[aw738]

Incredible...

But on the other hand, Audi introduced a transmission the same year as my car that no longer requires fluid changes or maintenance (unless of course you damage it). But breaking an engine and tranny apart to either clean or replace a screen/filter

I was talking about this with the owner of the transmission shop today about this thread. He also told me that the transmissions in Ford Contours (probably uses a Mazda transmission) are of the same design. As far as the Audi transmission I don't and wouldn't believe it. ALL mechanical devices require maintainance.

[wynot]

I was talking about this with the owner of the transmission shop today about this thread. He also told me that the transmissions in Ford Contours (probably uses a Mazda transmission) are of the same design. As far as the Audi transmission I don't and wouldn't believe it. ALL mechanical devices require maintainance.

Mercedes and Audi took a path about 10 years ago which was to seal their transmissions (seal being kind of a loose wording, but that's what is used).  Their argument was that they were now building to such fine tolerances AND that the fluids used were of high enough quality, that in the normal course of driving that it should not require routine servicing.
 
The somewhat unspoken message was that it kept untrained service folks out of underfilling, overfilling, and putting in things incorrectly (wrong fluids, screens, etc.), which they determined caused the majority of the problems that these companies were encountering.  People putting Dexron into Mercon V systems, etc.  Or something similar.
 
Anyhow.  On my vehicle, I am the switchover year.  My manual says to change every 45K, and it uses Dexron III.  People looking up the service requirements tell me it is lifetime fluid and never needs to be changed - UNTIL they look up the serial #.  I really got scared when after telling my independent foreign car place three times that it used Dexron, he called me up after changing it without my permission (having told me he couldn't perform the service 2 weeks prior), and said, "I started draining it and it had Dexron in it - did you know it was the older style?".  I think that is exactly WHO Mercedes and Audi want to keep away from it.