Doing some spring maintenance on my 2008 and 2009 Honda Ranchers. In particular when changing the rear differential fluid I noticed that on both my and my wife's Ranchers that the rear diff fluid was very thick and dark. I believe mine may even have had water in it (it had a weird greenish tint to it too). I know my service manual says replace every 600 miles but going forward I think I am going to replace every 200-300 miles. So has a heads up to all you Rancher owners out there, based on my findings, I would be replacing the rear diff fluid more often then the 600 mile recommendation in the service manual. On another note, the font diff fluid was clear and clean. So going forward I will be replacing the rear fluid twice to every front fluid change.

 

Hmmm. I'm no expert here but I thought that gear oil DOES have a greenish tint to it. If it's clear, that would be bad. Whitish/gray would mean water is mixed with it.