Today I'm going to talk about the top five things you should never do to your automatic transmission if you want it to last.

Now automatic transmissions like this Honda cost a lot of money to fix if they go bad.

Rebuilding them can cost three, four, even five thousand dollars.

So you want to take care of them and I'm going to show you five things that you never want to do with them.

Now you never want to drive an automatic car through deep water and here's why.

You see that little black piece right there?

Well, this black piece right here that I'm tapping, that's a vent.

You have to have vents on automatic transmissions as the fluid gets hot and expands and contracts to release pressure.

And if you go through water that will suck water into the transmission.

And let's just say water and automatic transmissions do not go together.

If you get water in your automatic transmission...

Sometimes you get lucky and flush it out and it'll work.

But often, it will destroy the entire transmission and you'll need a new one.

And the second thing never to do is, never accidentally have your car go from drive into reverse while the cars moving.

Now this Honda is a better design.

The shifter is on the dash.

That's kind of hard to do.

But a lot of cars have them down on the bottom down here.

So if yours is like this, make sure you don't accidentally hit it and rip it into reverse while you're driving down the road, because it will destroy the transmission.

I've had more than one of my customers teenage kids.

When they're learning how to drive and screwing around with their friends, do that, hit it in reverse and they just destroyed the transmission.

And if they're older cars they just ended up junking them.

Now the next thing not to do with an automatic transmission car is, leaving it in drive if you're idling for a really long period of time.

Because leaving it in drive if you're idling for a long time that can lead to overheating of the inside of the transmission.

If you're going to be sitting there for really long time, just shut the car off or at least put it into park.

Because in Park, it's not directly connected, the torque converter isn't sending a lot of power, so it won't get quite as hot in park as it will and drive.

Now the next bad thing not to do with your automatic transmission is, don't go around doing burnouts all the time.

Doing burnouts is one of the worst things you can do for an automatic transmission.

And of course burnouts aren't good for any car.

I know you're going to say, "Oh Scotty, your always having pictures of burn outs."

Well those are standard transmission cars.

That's not that great for them, but you're just going to end up burning out the clutch, which is a lot cheaper than replacing the whole transmission.

Now the last thing not to do has to do with your automatic transmission fluid.

If you have a later model car, don't listen to this nonsense.

This says, "No need to replace ATF under normal driving conditions."

It's a bunch of nonsense.

Well I've dealt with that in a recent video.

It just basically says, "oh, the fluid is good for the lifetime of the transmission, but then the lifetime of the transmission is less, and less, and and less."

Because you don't want dirty fluid in.

You want to change it regularly.

And yes modern cars use synthetic fluid that can handle heat better and break down less.

But eventually it does break down.

I still say change your transmission fluid every sixty to eighty thousand miles, regardless of what these ridiculous directions say.

Realize if you take care of your transmission it can take care of you.

This Honda's been taken care of, it's got one hundred ninety five thousand miles and even though Honda's have relatively weak automatic transmissions, this one is still shifting fine.

So now you know what the top five things you shouldn't be doing to your transmission are to make it last as long as it possibly can.

So if you never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!