[Noah930]

I smell shakedown. But did you happen to ask the service writer what would happen if the transmission failed while still under warranty? Would it be covered? It seems that as long as the maintenance minder didn't tell you to swap out the fluid, a warranty claim should still be honored by the factory. Otherwise there's something defective about the fluid (or tranny) and it should still be covered under warranty now. You shouldn't have to pay the $150 or so for a transmission fluid flush at only 32K miles.

Changing the fluid in an automatic transmission is a PITA, IMO. You can only drain about 3 of the 7 or 8 quarts at a time, so unless you've got some way to power flush the system, you're left doing about 4 serial fluid changes (change, drive 15 min, change, drive 15 min, etc). Because I do my own oil changes, I just started changing 3 qts of ATF every other oil change. I'm down underneath there and the car/van is up on jack stands to facilitate the tire rotation, anyway. In the end, it works out to be about the same, fluidwise. I started doing it because both auto tranny Honda models we have owned had suspected issues with transmission longevity, and I figured a little preventive maintenance was easier and cheaper than worrying about a transmission failure.

But I'm a shadetree mechanic, so don't swear by what I say or do.