My car was bought in September 2007 does anyone know whether CVT-F was used during it's manufacture I tried getting this info from my Honda dealer and all I got was "leave well alone" They didn't say whether they would replace the box for free if there was a subsequent box failure however.
fwiw, I bought my Chinese made car in December 2007. It has a black rubber bung fitted midway along the length of the dipstick with 'CVTF' carved into it. The colour of the oil on the end of the dipstick looks clear to me with a tinge of red.
A friend owns a '06' plate 2006 Japanese made Jazz. He noted his dipstick had 'ATF' marked on it. But when he examined the colour of the gear oil, it looked like CVTF oil.
He spoke to the head workshop guy at his local supplying dealer in Essex. Here is an edited extract of the response to my friend's questions:
"The judder issue they have seen have all been on 2002/2003 early Jazz - a flush ALWAYS solves the problem - no strip has ever been needed. i.e. the problem never returns after a flush. His view was if the car has never had problems then leave it."
"Both ATF-Z1 and CVTF oils are red in colour - you can't tell the difference between the two."
"You can replace ATF oil with CVTF oil without need of an extra flush if you are changing the oil at the regular service interval - 75k miles (6 years) as they are the same grade."
"And finally, I gave him my chassis number which he put into his workshop software, and it told him that the car will have CVT-F3 (yes, F3) oil in the gearbox. So, it does seem I have CVT-F oil, despite the ATF printed on the dipstick bung."
"As an afterthought, just to prove you can never win, he also said they have had one or two issues with judder with the NEW CVT-F oil!! Dunno if it was coincidental, but I presume it was with older cars perhaps."
Note that 75k miles/5 years change interval was quoted in the conversation, and yet my 2006 printed service log book supplied with my UK 2007 Jazz quotes 50k miles/5 years. (The early 2007 DVD based Honda workshop manual quotes 50k miles/4 years for European models.....)