The manual says to change the CVT fluid every 30K miles, but many people today say that 15K is a better idea, given how fragile these transmissions are. My car is in the shop today for unrelated work (AC recharge, oil change), and I had them check the CVT fluid color, which they reported was "very dark". Since it has been ~15K miles since the last CVT fluid change I'm having that changed now too. We only used this shop once before, but these guys are at least somewhat honest since they checked the other fluids, brakes, and this and that, and didn't think any of the rest of it needed work. In other words, I think they probably gave an accurate report of the color, since they had ample opportunity to pad the repair bill and did not.

What I'm wondering is what the "normal" progression of CVT fluid color is over time. If everything was working exactly as designed, how dark would one expect the CVT fluid to be at 15K miles?

 

After 15K miles mine has always gone from red when new to reddish brown. If they're looking for bright red tranny fluid, they may interpret it as "very dark."

 

I thought that might be the case. Thanks.

The color now, just a drip from the dipstick onto a white paper towel, is a very light pink.

On the invoice they wrote "Honda CVT fluid", and some internal control number, not the Honda part number, so I called them the next day to make sure they had used CVT-1 and not HCF-2. Turns out that they subscribe to two different services which provide technical information and repair guides, and these disagreed on which fluid to use. Assuming one of them correctly lists CVT-1 the other lists something that should not be going into those transmissions, probably ATF-Z1 or HCF-2. (The official Honda repair manual, at least the one I purchased new a few years ago, still lists ATF-Z1.) It makes one wonder how many CVT failures may have resulted from mechanics putting in the wrong fluid.

 

IIRC HCH1 shipped with ATF-Z1 until CVT was developed later. HCH1 seemed to have a less reliable CVT with more frequent need for burnishing.

 

That very light pink is the correct color for fresh Honda CVT transmission fluid.