Also known as: h6, honda h6, honda 6at, honda 6-speed automatic
Honda's six-speed automatic — in the Pilot and Ridgeline.
Honda's automatics are unusual and this one is no exception: they use parallel-shaft gearsets rather than the planetary arrangement almost every other automatic in this catalogue uses. That is why Honda transmissions have their own repair procedures, their own failure modes, and their own fluid — and why advice written about automatics in general applies less here than anywhere else on this site.
Honda ATF is not a substitute-able fluid. Using a generic ATF produces a shudder on the torque converter's lock-up clutch within a short distance, and it is the single commonest self-inflicted fault on a Honda automatic.
Its recurring complaint is exactly that shudder — a fine vibration at light throttle at a steady speed — and on this transmission it is a fluid-condition symptom first and a mechanical one second. A drain and refill, repeated, is the standard first remedy rather than a flush.
It is not the nine-speed ZF fitted to the Pilot and Ridgeline's later and higher trims; the two appear in the same models in the same years and share nothing.
Cars fitted with this gearbox
2 generations. Only where a source names the model and the generation together — a gearbox is documented as a product far more often than as a fitment, so this list is deliberately shorter than the truth.
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
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