Hey guys,

I know this has been covered but i had some questions about when to do the first oil change. The last time i saw a thread on this the recommendation was to wait until the maintenance minder came on and then do your first oil change.

I was going to wait until the minder told me to change the oil but im already up to 6300 miles and my oil life is only down to 50%. Should I just wait it out or change the oil soon? Will the oil life start to drop faster as it get's lower?

Also, what mileage do you guys usually rotate your tires?

 

i would wait.

 

I tried to wait for the rotate tire instruction on the MM, but ended up doing it at ~8k miles. I reccomend doing it by then, since the fronts had worn noticably compaired to the rears on the stock tires.

For the oil change, wait for the MM. There was a thread on Bob is the oil guy where a fit owner sent in the oil from his first chage (at 10k miles or so, when the MM went off) and they said it still had 2-3k miles of life left in it! The fit is very easy on it's oil, just keep an eye on the level and all will be good.

 

Totally forgot about this thread.

Thanks for the response guys. Its really nerve wracking because I'm used to changing around 3.5k-5k and now I'm up to around 7,500 @ 40% oil life. I might just end up changing it when it warms up since I'm thinking about driving across the country this summer.

As far as tires they definitely look like they need a rotation. I didn't even know the MM would prompt for that. I'd have done it already if my floor jack still worked. I don't want to pay for something so simple tho :/

 

You're fine doing this if you want to, I changed my fill oil early and engine isn't falling apart, don't use a drop of oil in my 10k mile + cycles, car is not babied.

 

Yeah, it sounds like you will hit a MM code right around 10k. Really don't worry about it though, so far I have done three changes and every time it looked almost clean enough to put back in! (I know what you mean though, my civic and subaru I had before, both well into the 160k mi + range made a mess of the oil in 5k mi.) The light comes on at 15% life, so you can do some quick calculations to get a guess when it will be on an decide if you will change before or after the trip.

For rotating the tires, you can (though I don't reccomend I, since I did it in a pinch when I got a flat on the front) get a whole side up just on the emergency jack if you find a slight hill. The fit is that nose heavy.

Proof: (yes, I know it's dangerous, make sure to put some sort of support on the back when you get it up! The ground happened to be shaped to where this wasn't going anywhere, while the tires were still on I gave it some good pushes in avrious directions to test stability before proceeding)

 

^



I do know what you're saying about the front being nose heavy, if you start jacking up the front the rear almost immediately starts unloading...

 

It has taken me 3.5 years to drive 7500 miles in my 2009 Fit (I walk most places), and my Maintenance Minder had not recommended any service. But the MM doesn't take time into the equation. Should I believe that my oil can go 5 years without any degradation???

 

Page 253 of the owners manual, in the sub-note for the maintenance minder code chart "If themessage‘‘SERVICE’’does not appear more than 12 months after thedisplay is reset, change the engine oil every year."

Also in the sub text "independent of the Maintenance Minder Information, replace the brake fluid every 3 years"

 

I have changed the oil twice and the brake fluid once, but it clear that the MM is useless for less-than-"normal" users. I much preferred the maintenance schedules for my 1981 & 1994 Civics!

 

Most cars that are made these days would have oil change intervals on the order of 6,000 to 10,000 miles, or one year, whichever came first. So it would even out in the end.

 

Would you wait three years to change your oil in your 1994 Civic if you hadn't driven 3k miles (or whatever the recommended change interval is)?

I'm sure you wouldn't.

Mileage based change intervals are always useless for drivers that don't put that many miles on the car, regardless of if a computer is telling you to do the work or not.

Oil change every year
Brake fluid every three years

What else do you need to know?

 

The only especially dangerous thing I see in this shot is that you are using the factory scissor jack for something other than an emergency. I've had a few of those bend or fail catastrophically over the years, one of which left me lucky to still have both my hands.

 

That was an emergency. I was putting the spare on the rear with a flat front.

I actually use the factory jack fairly often when working on the car, but I use it on the rear only in that case, in conjunction with a nice little hydraulic one on the front to lift up a side of the car.

 

My 2009 Honda Civic had an oil life indicator and fail to see how it can tell you what the life of your oil is. It is, essentially, a timer that is programmed go off at a certain interval. It is not a sensor that monitors the dirtiness of your oil (much less a mechanic).

Having worked in a shop and seen engines ruined by infrequent oil changes, there is zero risk or harm in changing your oil every 5K (or 1 year, whichever comes first).

 

The maintenance minder system, while not an oil analysis lab or a system based around a direct sensor reading of oil contamination/quality, is quite a bit more sophisticated than just a timer. It takes into account the operating conditions of the engine (number of cold starts, how hard it is being driven, etc.) and adjusts the oil life accordingly. There have been a few people on the forum here who have gotten oil analyses done and it's consistently been quite accurate or a bit on the conservative side.

There may be no risk in changing the oil at 5000 mile intervals for most drivers (though that may be too infrequent for unusually harsh usage), but it's excessive for people who do a lot of highway driving. If you think about it, milage is really a fairly poor way of determining oil life, as the things that cause lots of miles to build up (highway cruising) are not really the things that cause oil to "wear down" (cold starts, hard acceleration, short trips).

 

While the will make it seem like MM will be "quite" a bit more sophisticated, I'd argue that most of the variables just turn out to be statistical noise and a gimmick to make that feature seem smarter then it has to be.

The main correlating variable can all be boiled down to Fuel Used. If you burned 10gallons of fuel, that's going to account for hard driving or cruising.

Throw in some buffer to account for the other conditions variables, and some buffer to cover your butt for unexpected behavior and to account for minimal-quality oil then you end up with an oil change number.

So I don't think there really has to be some magical super complex formula. All those other calculations are just figuring out the decimal points,

 

And that's probably still better than just counting miles, especially for people who spend a lot of time sitting still or driving in traffic jams.

 

Change your oil based on fuel consumption. For 98% of Fits, GE and GD.. I'd put the interval between 135-150gal between changes.

 

By this calculation, I'd be changing my oil every 5000 to 5500 miles (37 mpg avg calculated over 135 to 150 gallons)

How did you arrive at 135-150 gallons?