With Lovert Mafukure

Garage tales: Which transmission fluid to use

I IMPORTED a Honda Fit from Japan and I am having headaches about what transmission fluid to use in my gearbox . . . I need to service my car.

If a human being eats poisonous food or food that’s not edible chances are they will get affected in a negative way or even die.

It is the same with motor cars. If you fill your engine with the wrong oil it will seize eventually, if you fill your transmission with the wrong fluid it will be affected negatively.

All the fluids that go into a car are specially formulated to work in their respective fields.

The first generation Honda Fit — GD1 to GD5 — is the most popular model in the Hatch Category. It is a fun to drive Hatch with plenty of room for passengers.

I’m sure it’s the best of the small cars when it comes to interior space, boot space, durability and power delivery. It’s not so bad to look at either.

The Honda Fit comes with the L series power plant. It is a 4-cylinder single overhead camshaft engine. Two different variations are available for the Honda Fit, L13A and L15A.

They run on the same L-block platform but have different cylinder heads. The L13A is the 1399cc and it’s the one that comes with the Red Dot Model and features two valves and two plugs per cylinder and runs a single overhead camshaft.

That means it has 8 plugs in total. According to Honda, it helps with fuel efficiency. You will find out that the Red Dot is then a bit more expensive to service than normal cars and it tends to be a bit more expensive to fix with 8 plugs and 8 ignition coils.

The L15A is the one that comes with the Blue Dot Honda Fit model and it has the 1500cc motor. This variant comes with Vtec setup, 4 valves and one spark plug per cylinder.

The Vtec generates more power. Both these engines are highly fuel-efficient engines and Honda claims fuel consumption of around 20km/litre.

In Zimbabwe you will not however, get that mileage with our sugar laced fuel, it turns to burn faster than unleaded fuels. The million dollar question here is which fluid to use in the Honda Fit.

The answer is CVT Fluid. All Honda Fits have one thing in common . . . They all have CVTs. Honda Fit L series engines are mated with a CVT (Continuously Variable Transmission) or in isolated cases a 5 Speed manual gearbox.

This popular CVT is misunderstood by many people who treat it as an automatic transmission — it’s Not! The Blue Dot Honda Fit with L15A is the sportier version and comes equipped with a 7-speed option. Since its a CVT, it makes more sense to say it has 7 different speed ratios since it doesn’t actually have gears.

The Holy book talks about God’s people dying because of ignorance . . . Honda Fits are dying because of ignorance. A lot of people do not know about CVTs and end up filling up gearboxes with Automatic Transmission Fluid. Do not make that mistake. Some people despise them saying they have weak gearboxes but that is not the case.

Proper maintenance of these gearboxes is what is lacking. As the first owner, start your own service record the right way and you will not be disappointed with your car. I know a few people that have serviced their Hondas correctly and are still enjoying the smooth drive.

If as a reader you decide to buy a used car remember that people usually start disposing when they start having problems especially gearbox problems.

When you buy one of these used, it’s wise to get a professional to do a pre-purchase inspection for you. It is sad to see people buy bags of lemons when they think they are buying a bundle of joy. An abused cheap car can easily cost more money if one just buys with just the faith, get it inspected first.

Honda Fits are strong cars compared to other smaller cars. Honda has a history of making engines that last beyond expectation and the L series engine is no exception.

The CVT is just as good and offers more efficiency than an automatic transmission ever could. There is a general point of view that Honda Fits have problematic transmissions and it’s not so true. Its transmission problems are more of human error than an engineering weakness.

The challenge mainly borders around maintenance of these transmissions. People tend to neglect servicing the CV transmissions and oftentimes those who do use the wrong transmission fluid. CVTs do not use ATF. Once ATF is used, disaster ensues. Happy motoring!

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