Transmission fluid change without filter replacement

Ok...did my 3rd and last drain and fill session. 3.5 qts was too little. 4 qts was too much. I used 3.7 qts on this last session and it was perfect. Measured again after cycling through all the gears and the blue light went off (took several minutes) and the fluid was perfectly in the box on the dipstick.

Color wise, looked the same as the last session honestly. It's a blue fluid, I think its going to darken pretty quickly. Picture once again makes it look black, but trust me it is not.

Anyway forgot to snap a pic of the dipstick at the right level, but I plan on measuing it again soon as I ordered one of those scan things and downloaded a phone app to read ATF temp.

Edit: yes I need to sweep out the garage, badly.
Nice! Thanks for your detailed report. I need these information when my CX-5 reaches 50K miles in about 2 years.
 
Nice! Thanks for your detailed report. I need these information when my CX-5 reaches 50K miles in about 2 years.

For sure!

I now plan to do a drain/fill every 30-50k miles. Not sure when, but at some point I'll drop the pan and replace the filter, but not looking forward to messing around with the silicone gasket stuff.

To summarize my experience:

1st session (9/1 - 71,270 miles): 3.5 quarts drained, 3.5 qts added. I did not measure correctly, so because of factory underfill, was still underfilled.
2nd session (9/8 - 71,554 miles): 3.5 qts drained. Before draining, measured it properly by running car through all gears and waiting for it to warm up and blue light shut off. With the car still idling, took measurement and found it to be low. Added 4 qts. Re-measured when finished, and now it was overfilled a bit. A tad below the second line on the dipstick.
3rd session (9/15 - 71,772 miles): Measured again, confirmed overfill. 4 qts drained, 3.7 qts added. Re-measured, level perfectly in the box on the dipstick.

Notes:

-Used ramps to raise front end. Wheel chocks in the back of course.
-Measured ATF drained using a 4qt clear drink pitcher that had quart and half quart markings. Worked perfectly.
-Drain plug for transmission uses same crush washer as oil drain plug, and same 8mm hex to remove. Tightened back on with new crush washers (they are cheap, play it safe) after each drain/fill to 27 ft. lb. of torque with torque wrench. No leaks detected.
-Unlike the panel to access the engine oil and oil filter which uses 8mm socket and push tabs, the larger panel that needs to be removed to access transmission drain plug/pan uses 10mm socket and push tabs.
-I will confirm that the dipstick design kinda sucks. Dirt will be under the dipstick along the metal surface where it sits on the transmission. Be very careful to clean it without getting dirt into the hole.
-I felt like pulling dipstick from below the car to be very awkward, so I always went from the top. Airbox was removed, I then turned it and reattached to the air tube to engine so that the airbox was just kind of laying on top of the engine bay, but it gave me enough room to access dipstick and turn car on to get to temp as needed.
-Amount of fluid drained was consistent with what I added each session. Pretty confident I'll have 3.7 qts drain next time I do this and will simply re-add 3.7 qts.
-The drained fluid looks darker than I think it actually is. Pics make the fluid look black, but it is more like a really dark blue, or almost like a brown with a dark greenish tint to it depending on how the light hits it. I suspect the fluid darkens pretty quick as the color always seemed to look the same on all 3 sessions. Maybe a little better the last 2 sessions.
 
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ColoradoDriver: Thank you! Greatly appreciate the info and hearing about your experience with this.
 
I successfully did the drain and fill for my first time on any car - thanks to all for the photos and advice! I figured out a way to do everything without removing the air box after initially removing it to figure out where everything was. The dipstick can be removed from under the car as others have noted. I put a smallish funnel into the opening from underneath and then used a Hopkins FloTool Spill Saver to pour the fluid into the funnel from the top.

One question for anyone who can help...when I removed the plastic shrouding from underneath the car, a white, stitched fabric pad fell out. It's about 1/4" thick with what appears to be fiberglass inside. It's almost rectangular, about 3" x 6", and like 8 rusty-looking holes in it. I guess it's some sort of insulating heat shield of some sort. Not sure whether it fell free when I initially removed the air box or if the shop dropped it when I had them working on an emissions CEL. Any idea what this could be? I want to post a picture, but at the moment I keep getting file upload failures.
 
One question for anyone who can help...when I removed the plastic shrouding from underneath the car, a white, stitched fabric pad fell out. It's about 1/4" thick with what appears to be fiberglass inside. It's almost rectangular, about 3" x 6", and like 8 rusty-looking holes in it. I guess it's some sort of insulating heat shield of some sort. Not sure whether it fell free when I initially removed the air box or if the shop dropped it when I had them working on an emissions CEL. Any idea what this could be? I want to post a picture, but at the moment I keep getting file upload failures.

That's weird! Never seen anything like that in my engine bay. One time I did find in my engine bay a completely flattened PBR can pinched between that shroud and a cross member. No idea how that got from the street to there, but it did lol!
 
That's weird! Never seen anything like that in my engine bay. One time I did find in my engine bay a completely flattened PBR can pinched between that shroud and a cross member. No idea how that got from the street to there, but it did lol!

Ha! Odd things end up in cars sometimes. One time I noticed something inside the front bumper cover, in front of the radiator. It turned out to be some sort of metal electrical conduit clamp or something stamped with the brand name Hubbell. The thing is about 2" long and is heavy, but I couldn't find any damage to the bumper cover or radiator if it made its way in during driving. And of course, not sure why someone would put it there by hand... Still puzzled to this day.
 
I successfully did the drain and fill for my first time on any car - thanks to all for the photos and advice! I figured out a way to do everything without removing the air box after initially removing it to figure out where everything was. The dipstick can be removed from under the car as others have noted. I put a smallish funnel into the opening from underneath and then used a Hopkins FloTool Spill Saver to pour the fluid into the funnel from the top.

One question for anyone who can help...when I removed the plastic shrouding from underneath the car, a white, stitched fabric pad fell out. It's about 1/4" thick with what appears to be fiberglass inside. It's almost rectangular, about 3" x 6", and like 8 rusty-looking holes in it. I guess it's some sort of insulating heat shield of some sort. Not sure whether it fell free when I initially removed the air box or if the shop dropped it when I had them working on an emissions CEL. Any idea what this could be? I want to post a picture, but at the moment I keep getting file upload failures.

Sounds like the insulating material on the underside of the plastic cover on top of the engine.
 
So our 2014 CX5 Touring has 84K miles on it now, purchased with 53K on it. I've never touched the auto gearbox so far, so I'm guessing it's due for some fresh ATF. Not looking forward to having to buy enough OEM fluid for 3 drain/refills. :(
 
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Would love to do that, but I'll need to request another kit and hope I actually get it. I requested an oil change analysis kit at the end of last year from Blackstone, and nothing ever showed up.
 
So our 2014 CX5 Touring has 84K miles on it now, purchased with 53K on it. I've never touched the auto gearbox so far, so I'm guessing it's due for some fresh ATF. Not looking forward to having to buy enough OEM fluid for 3 drain/refills. :(

Based on my report, I wish I had done my drain and fill services closer to 50k miles.

I probably spent about $150 in fluid to do 3 drain/fills. That was local though. Can find fluid online closer to $10/bottle. With shipping it was a wash, so I just bought local closer to $15/bottle, but you might get luckier then I did and be closer to $100.

I definitely also recommend capturing a sample and getting an analysis of your fluid done on the first drain/fill. Would be interesting to see how your fluid fairs at 84k miles and we can get some more data around how this "lifetime" fluid is holding up.
 
Yeah I just requested 3 kits, so we'll see what happens. I want to do a UOA of the CX5 engine oil, and also of my 94 Integra GSR with 365,000 miles and original engine internals, in which I use Mobil1 0w30 changed once a year or 6,000 miles (lately it's seen less than 5,000 miles/year). It loses about a quart of oil in 6 months, but hopefully that will change here in the next few weeks after I replace the oil pan gasket on that car.
 
Yeah I just requested 3 kits, so we'll see what happens. I want to do a UOA of the CX5 engine oil, and also of my 94 Integra GSR with 365,000 miles and original engine internals, in which I use Mobil1 0w30 changed once a year or 6,000 miles (lately it's seen less than 5,000 miles/year). It loses about a quart of oil in 6 months, but hopefully that will change here in the next few weeks after I replace the oil pan gasket on that car.

I've been having some good UOA's on my engine oil (2 done now). But I did notice I was a quart low on my last change. I usually just put in a 5 quart jug of 0W20 and last change I drained a bit over 4 quarts. Was about a 6600 mile interval if I recall.

If I push to a 7500 interval, I plan on checking and adding a quart at 5k if it needs it.
 
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So our 2014 CX5 Touring has 84K miles on it now, purchased with 53K on it. I've never touched the auto gearbox so far, so I'm guessing it's due for some fresh ATF. Not looking forward to having to buy enough OEM fluid for 3 drain/refills. :(
At 84K miles I may still get the ATF changed for the first time if I were you. 3 drain-and-refills are good but its getting pretty expensive even if you DIY. Yeah definitely get the 83K-mile factory ATF analyzed and let us know the result.
 
I've been having some good UOA's on my engine oil (2 done now). But I did notice I was a quart low on my last change. I usually just put in a 5 quart jug of 0W20 and last change I drained a bit over 4 quarts. Was about a 6600 mile interval if I recall.

If I push to a 7500 interval, I plan on checking and adding a quart at 5k if it needs it.
Said it before, try some 5W-30 oil, which is one of the Mazdas recommended viscosities worldwide by the way, next time and it should slow down your oil consumption、and reduce oil and moisture in the blow-by gas.
 
Said it before, try some 5W-30 oil, which is one of the Mazdas recommended viscosities worldwide by the way, next time and it should slow down your oil consumption、and reduce oil and moisture in the blow-by gas.
Yeah forgot about that. May give it a go next change.
 
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