04' Pilot time for trany fluid change. Any advise or maint manual?
 

It's time for my 04' Pilot transmission fluid change (47K) and I wanted to find out the procedures and necessary kit. I purchase the fluid from the dealer but didn't know if I needed anything else. If anyone has any suggestions, I would appreciate it.

Just did this one over the weekend too!!
 

1st: The 2003 Pilots had a transmission related recall on them. If your 2004 did as well, then the tranny fill plug under the hood (toward the back-center of the engine compartment) will have been taken up by an extra hose the dealership "rigged up" to pump extra fluid to the tranny as part of the recall. This looked like a b*tch to take off and use to fill the tranny, so...

In this case. . .make darn sure you have a means of filling the tranny via the skinny little tranny dip-stick pipe first, then empty your tranny, and refill with about 3.2 quarts (I don't think the 2004 is any different). Make sure your using the TRANNY DIP STICK, and not the OIL DIP STICK!

If your didn't have the recall, and you can just get a funnel with a hose at autozone, remove the tranny fill plug on top, empty your tranny from the bottom, and fill via the nice hole Honda has provided.

William

I'll give it a try
 

Thanks. I'll take a stab at it this weekend. I'll also check to see if there was a recall related issue with the 2004. Thanks again.

Honda (and me personally) doesn't recommend flushing the transmission fluid because it will bring back up metal particles into the transfer case. Honda recommends tranny fluid changes every 30,000 miles on your Pilot I believe.

All you need is to pick up is Honda ATF from the dealer (the amount you need will be in the owners manual) and just drain and refill it like you would with oil.

its not any harder to fill up if the oil jet kit is installed all u have to do is take out a 12mm bolt instead of a 17 and pull the hose out atf is 3.3 qts

Oh wow I'm an idiot :doh: I gotta stop working so many hours. :oh:

Oil Jet Kit?
 

This job sounds easy enough, but I'm having some reservations about this oil jet kit. Is there some kind of service bulletin or manual that will illustrate this? Or is it simply a look & see where the OJ kit is? Sorry if I'm sounding retarded. I looked for recall info on the 2004 and there wasn't. So I'm not sure if there was a kit installed or not. Somebody please advise.

Ok. I did it this past weekend. It wasn't bad, but that skinny dipstick hole was a small pain. Thanks for your help.

Here is how to change the transmission fluid on a Honda Pilot

I just did this on an 04 Pilot that had the transmission recall contraption attached and it was not a problem.

Here's how:

No need to remove the engine cover or anything, just look about 12 inches directly behind the transmission dipstick hole and you will see a bracket holding a metal tube bent at a 90 degree angle that runs down into the tranny with a rubber hose attached. (I tried to attach a picture)

1) Remove the one 12MM bolt that holds the bracket/tab/metal tube part in place.

2) Once this one bolt is out, you can grab the metal tube where the hose is attached and wiggle the whole part. Pull metal tube straight up as you wiggle. There's an o ring that seals this so rotate/wiggle it back in forth as you pull and it'll come straight out (no need to remove the rubber hose that's held on by that spring clamp).

3) Once the part is out of the way you can access the transmission filler port (see attached picture)

3) Now you can add the fluid (took me about 3.5 quarts). Don't overfill.

Actually, I think it's easier to do on vehicles that have the oil jet kit.

thanks
 

thanks for the info and pics - EXACTLY - what I needed to know!
Only negative is dealer charges retail for the fluid. $7.07 qt found it online for $5.28 qt, but shipping makes the cost about the same. Thanks again!

Very nice pictures, thanks for the effort! Great info!

I have a question and a tip. First the tip. I fill my trans fluid through the filler tube with the contraption that you can hopefully see here. I just cut the bottom off a heavy plastic ice tea bottle and put a hose fitting in the cap. I Superglued the cap on just for insurance. The fitting is made up of male and female hose barb adapters. I hacksawed of the hose fitting end of the one that is inside the bottle ca[ and ground it's nut down so that it was very near the bottom of the bottle cap so it would drain all but a few drops. The cap itself helps with that because the last little bit of fluid collects in cap which keeps the level up so it drains almost completely. Rubber washers backed by stainless steel washers are on each side of the cap and under the hose barbs. The tubing and hose barb adapters have a 1/8th I.D. and the host fits inside of the trans filler tube. The jug is hung by wires from the hood catch. It takes about 30-40 minutes to fill the trans.

But my question is more serious. As you know,the trans for a 2004 Pilot is supposed to take 3.2 quarts of trans fluid with a single change. But mine takes nearly 5 quarts! That's how much drains and that's how much it takes to get the proper reading on the dipstick (using the proper reading method.) Has anyone else found this to be the case? When I put in 3.2 quarts, it doesn't even register on the dipstick. I don't know if the recall modification might have something to do with this (possibly increased trans fluid capacity?) or not but it concerns me and I would appreciate any advice about this. The trans has never had a problem and it shifts perfectly. It has 92,000 miles on it. So my choice is: Fill it with 3.2 quarts of fluid as the specs say or put in the amount that drained and which is also the amount that brings it up to proper level on the dipstick. I chose the latter but I would like to hear from anyone who may have anything to say about this.

I'm glad that I do all my own work because if I had taken this somewhere and had someone else do it, they would have just put in 3.2 quarts without noticing that it drains nearly five quarts. If they didn't check the dipstick, I might be nearly two quarts low if it should read properly on the dipstick.

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/zoneIII/033.jpg

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/zoneIII/031.jpg

ZoneIII, the book is WRONG, nice contraption though.. I was changing the ATF on my 05 Pilot, The dealer sold me 4 quarts after I told him what I was doing. My book says 2.9 qt which was too low, fluid didn't even show up on dipstick. I called Honda Motors (which wasn't much help) and they told me the dealer would have the best answer. I called the dealer and he said 4 qts, although it is still little low (I figured I spill 0.2 qt)

[quote=ZoneIII;4748629]I have a question and a tip. First the tip. I fill my trans fluid through the filler tube with the contraption that you can hopefully see here. I just cut the bottom off a heavy plastic ice tea bottle and put a hose fitting in the cap. I Superglued the cap on just for insurance. The fitting is made up of male and female hose barb adapters. I hacksawed of the hose fitting end of the one that is inside the bottle ca[ and ground it's nut down so that it was very near the bottom of the bottle cap so it would drain all but a few drops. The cap itself helps with that because the last little bit of fluid collects in cap which keeps the level up so it drains almost completely. Rubber washers backed by stainless steel washers are on each side of the cap and under the hose barbs. The tubing and hose barb adapters have a 1/8th I.D. and the host fits inside of the trans filler tube. The jug is hung by wires from the hood catch. It takes about 30-40 minutes to fill the trans.

But my question is more serious. As you know,the trans for a 2004 Pilot is supposed to take 3.2 quarts of trans fluid with a single change. But mine takes nearly 5 quarts! That's how much drains and that's how much it takes to get the proper reading on the dipstick (using the proper reading method.) Has anyone else found this to be the case? When I put in 3.2 quarts, it doesn't even register on the dipstick. I don't know if the recall modification might have something to do with this (possibly increased trans fluid capacity?) or not but it concerns me and I would appreciate any advice about this. The trans has never had a problem and it shifts perfectly. It has 92,000 miles on it. So my choice is: Fill it with 3.2 quarts of fluid as the specs say or put in the amount that drained and which is also the amount that brings it up to proper level on the dipstick. I chose the latter but I would like to hear from anyone who may have anything to say about this.

I'm glad that I do all my own work because if I had taken this somewhere and had someone else do it, they would have just put in 3.2 quarts without noticing that it drains nearly five quarts. If they didn't check the dipstick, I might be nearly two quarts low if it should read properly on the dipstick.

Thanks for the information and pictures. I tried finding the fill plug based on 1 picture in my service manual and couldn't. Your description and pictures were very very helpful in locating the fill point. Should have looekn on the internet before I removed the air cleaner and engine cover.

Thanks to everyone! You just saved me a $400 service bill from my local dealer.

wiskey: Thank you very much for that info. Very helpful! At first I filled the trans until it showed up properly on the dipstick but that required much more than the 3.2 qts. the manual called for. But I had to use over five quarts to reache the mark on the dipstick. But I did NOT want to overfill my trans, of course. So I then just went ahead and used the 3.2 qts called for and figured (hoped) that the dipstick wasn't reading properly somehow. But with our info, I will start using 4 quarts and maybe a little more. But to make my fluid come up to the mark on the dipstick I have to put in over five quarts so I'm still a little concerned. But the trans works fine with either over 5 quarts added or 3.2 quarts so 4 quarts (or a bit more) is right in the middle and should work fine. Thanks again for your response.

Hey this is a pretty good thread.. We dont get to see many people posting images to help out! Nice.. I actually liked the step to step reply posted by sasasf.. That must have taken the person some time.. :)