Email back from Mazda - Transmission Fluid Change

Many people who are against changing the ATF is because they've seen failures one too many after the ATF change. But I truly believe the failure is caused by either using the non-compatible ATF which would have to mix with the same amount of old fluid couldn't be drained out, or changing the ATF too late!

They're too many people don't realize ATF change is different from any other oil / fluid changes. There're too much old fluid would stay in the torque converter and valve body, and we can never get those out even if we take the ATF pan down. Mixing half of the non-compatible or different brand of fresh ATF with old fluid definitely would cause problems. I'll always use OEM ATF doing ATF change!

The brand dealership (Jeep went to Chrysler, Infiniti went to Infiniti, so on) always did my fluid changes using OEM fluid. I never had one done that didn't result in negative consequences. The soonest I had one done was 68K miles. The latest was 110K miles.
 
Absolutely agree!

However I haven't changed the brake fluid once on my 1998 Honda CR-V with 180,678 miles due to my laziness and it's not listed on maintenance schedule. But I have changed its ATF 4 times as this service is much easier to do on CR-V than CX-5, and it's listed on maintenance schedule. :)

Brake fluid is 100X more important to change than transmission fluid ever dreamed of being in modern vehicles. This is why most tracks will not let you race unless you have proof of fluid change since the last event/last 3 months or so.
 
Brake fluid is 100X more important to change than transmission fluid ever dreamed of being in modern vehicles. This is why most tracks will not let you race unless you have proof of fluid change since the last event/last 3 months or so.

Agreed, especially with modern systems. The tolerances inside the ABS/VSC pump are ultra fine and the last thing it wants is sludge or moisture. Old brake fluid goes dark brown and leaves a black residue inside the reservoir and on other components.
 
And yet all these auto makers don’t even recommend changing it ever! At least VW does 3 years then every 2. I just follow that with cars that don’t recommend brake fluid change at all.
 
You could void your warranty if you dont change it every 2 years in Europe. Depends of course if its brake related.
 

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  • 2018 Scheduled maintenance.pdf
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they do... the factory fill and replacement listed in the manual is DOT4... even the cap says so
 
In our manual it doesn’t list brake fluid change in the service schedule. If you look at the schedule for Mexico it does though which doesn’t make sense to me.
 
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