Hi Scotty, the interwebs has mixed feelings about whether or not to change the transmission filters in the Honda Civic 10th gen CVT models (1.5 turbo or 2.0). There's 1 in the cvt warmer that is a cylinder shaped one, and 1 in the pan (need to remove pan to access). The one in the warmer I see you can remove the air box, then access it by removing 3 bolts. Is it pointless to swap these during transmission fluid swap? I've been just draining the fluid, and putting new fluid in every 30k. I'm at 75k, plan to be doing it again at 90k and will do the filters if deemed necessary. Honda claims the official transmission fluid change officially just involves the fluid, no filter swaps. Dealer confirmed this, they don't swap the filters unless transmission is rebuilt/pan is dropped for trans failure. I'm not having any transmission problems, but if those eventually clog up I'm wondering if not changing them is a bad idea.
If it's a paper filter, I would replace it. If it's a metal mesh, then I would just clean it out.
From what I've seen, CVT fluid gets pretty dirty. I wouldn't ignore the filters. At minimum I would inspect them.
@MountainManJoe Thanks for the response! The one in the warmer is paper, one in pan looks like a combo mesh/paper I think. The argument I hear from people is if you are changing the fluid often, it isn't getting dirty enough to cause the filters to clog. Since this isn't the engine with low micron filter needed, wouldn't this sort of be an indication of neglect if the filters were dirty? It seems odd that the manufacturer says not to change them unless experiencing issues. I thought those filters were catching large particles like metal shavings, but nothing that would actually clog? The fluid usually looks semi clean when I drain at 30k.
well manufacturers say a lot of things. Like, "lifetime fluid".
But you'll never know until you actually look at the filters.
@MountainManJoe Very true won't hurt for me to take a look. I'll probably order new gaskets and both filters and swap anyways, will refrain in the future if they look clean. Actually Honda does not say the fluid is lifetime, it tells you to change every 50k standard driving and 30k if mixed driving. Oil it's every 5k, manufacturer intervals sound spot on to me which is why I figure those filters must not really get dirty. I've seen other mechanics on youtube talk about how they think the filters are lifetime only if you change the fluid at required intervals. Again, the micron level of how dirty Trans fluid gets vs engine oil is my assumption why. Also I've seen a video of Scotty changing Trans fluid on a honda civic, and he didn't drop pan/swap filters. Would be nice to get his opinion too.