In my new 2015 Fit, the engine oil life indicator is at the 90% level after about 500 miles of driving. At this rate I would have to change the oil at about 5,000 miles. I do mostly city, stop and go driving. With the 0w-20 oil (I assume it is synthetic oil) I would have thought the I could go at least 8,000 miles before changing the oil. Any thoughts on this?

 

If you mix in more highway driving you will more that likely get to the 8000 mile mark. But with only city stop & go driving the 5000 mile number will probably be the result.

The computer in the car will know how you drive the car and will calculate with great accuracy when to change the oil.

Do remember though that the oil needs to be replaced yearly even if the Maintenance Minder hasn't told you to do it yet.

On our 2009 CR-V we have to change the oil after 10/11 months or yearly and we only drive 7500-8500 miles yearly.

Trust the computer and even if you have to change at 5000 it is still better than changing it every 3000 miles that the service departments try to force on their customers.

Even the dealership that I purchased my 2015 Fit from thinks I need to change my oil before 5000 because they think city driving is heavy duty which is BS.


Breaking the 3,000-Mile Habit
Stop Changing Your Oil! - Edmunds.com

 

Also note that the oil life drops in even increments, not steadily. 90% displayed actually covers the whole range of 81-90% of life remaining, so it's pretty hard to make an accurate projection based on the 90% reading.

5000 miles (or less) for city driving is not at all unreasonable, depending on what exactly the city driving entails. Short trips and stop-and-go (and relatively slow) driving mean you get a lot fewer miles out of the oil than long interstate cruises. By all accounts I've seen here of people who have had their oil analyzed, the maintenance minder is pretty accurate if biased a little bit towards the conservative side.

 

i have just shy of 3k miles on mine and i am at 70% left.

this is the first vehicle that i have ever owned hat i did not dump the oil at 500~1000 miles. it is killing me....

 

Welcome to Honda's "better by design".

Honda's reliability is one reason my wife and I both own a Honda.

 

Just my opinion, but if you do a lot of street driving, you should opt for changing it at 5k mi regardless.

I know my car is new, but I am still changing my oil at 5k mi anyway; I don't rely on the indicator. I will say, on my 2012 Civic, I could only push the synthetic to around 6500mi before I would be at a 15% life, with only freeway/highway driving to/from work. Still ended up being within that 3-4 month window anyway, so I didn't feel guilty letting the oil just get worse and worse in my motor.

 

You are falling for the :

promoted by the "quick oil-change industry" and service departments that want a car in a bay more often to sell more unneeded services.

READ THIS: Stop Changing Your Oil! - Edmunds.com

and trust the Oil Life Monitoring Systems

http://www.edmunds.com/car-care/oil-...g-systems.html

 

I never read the manual... I stalk the forums. The majority of the things I learn are from here and there, from my mechanic and what I picked up working on cars myself over the last few years. And I've only had a car worked on at a dealership once for the 3rd gear synchro in the 02 Civic SI being jammed; the second time ever will be the bumber support change that my car received a notice for. I have never gone to a quick oil change place either. Same mechanic on all my cars since I started driving 15 years ago. I have been using synthetic oil on all my cars except my GSR (because she burns oil) and my ex husbands SR20det 240sx.

I have had a lot of cars over the course of my life and tend to not follow the data measurements of the car because of things I've been taught or learned over the course of the last 15 years of driving different cars. My ex-father in law is my mechanic and doesn't have a need to lie to me about when I should/shouldn't change my cars oil (at least, I would hope). Synethic oil starts to break down and degrade around 7k miles as well, which is why you'll see the percentage of life decrease rapidly after that. That's also why I stick to the 5k mi change rule.

Not everything you read on the internet is always true, and mechanics that have been working on cars longer than I have been alive are pretty good indicators of what works and why, typically. Not knocking the sources, I would just rather caution on the side of safe. Cars break down, things are not always precise and I usually end up in the cars that have the fatal flaw. I'd just rather not risk it at this point; I don't have large amounts of expendable monies to replace an engine with, as I have had to do in the past.

But, those are just my reasons behind my methods of madness and I'm not trying to impose them on everyone, or anyone for that matter.

 

My take on oil life indicators.

I've always changed at 3,000 miles on all of my cars. I used conventional oil until synthetic became a cost effective option.

My MINI will tell me to change at 10,000. Since I want my cars to last I change the oil & filter with Mobil 1 at 5,000 miles. I've had the valve cover off & it is clean. Makes me happy.

My feeling about these crazy long OCI is that this lets the maker claim how cheap it is to run their cars. Once a car is out of warranty the maker could care less if you've shortened the life of your engine buy going with their recommendations for oil changes.

In conclusion, if you want your car to run a good long time, change your oil sooner not later.

It's a hot button topic & this is just my take. As they say your mileage may vary.

Picture of the inside of my Miata engine with 90,000 on the clock. Purdy & clean.

 

I never understand the logic to stay uninformed and be proud of it.

 

I'm not sure why you're getting hostile with what I responded with. Like the internet, you don't need to read a manual to understand your car; that's why there's this whole understanding around basic knowledge and as a human, the ability to adapt. I'm not going to be working on my car anytime soon and the things that I need to know how to work are common knowledge.

Just because I haven't read the manual and every page does not mean I'm uninformed, or lack any kind of information and at all means that I'm 'proud' as you say. Knowledge of items can be gained over very many differnet levels, and don't always have to come from the manual.

Sorry that you don't like how I do things and your opinion is your opinion, but when you have no background on my attitude, my car knowledge or my ability, please do not insinuate that you know the reasoning behind what I do and accuse my attitude of being such.

 

Wrong conclusion(s)

#1: FACT: Changing your oil more often than recommended WILL NOT increase the life of your car.

#2: FACT: Changing your oil more often than necessary will cost you more.

 

A bit defensive are we.

You stated that you "Never read the manual". The critical word being Never.

And yes I do not understand why anyone would be proud that they never read the manual.

I, for one, do not read the manual cover-to-cover but I do glance at the table of contents and read sections on new features or about some items in the car that are confusing.

As for you getting answers here on forums or on the web do you not consider that those people got that information by reading the manual.

I have asked questions on this forum and have had replies that refer to where in the manual to find the answers. That works out fine for me as the manual being over 450 pages is somewhat confusing as to where to look but it is nice to know that the answer is in there.

And yes:

 

Change your oil whenever you want.

FF is a safe place. Let's try and keep it that way.

 

#1: Fact 1: It won't hurt my car. It may even INCREASE ITS LIFE. Ever had an engine apart that hasn't had good oil service done? It's real ugly.

#2: Fact 2: My oil changes cost me $35, I can afford that.

#3: Fact 3: I agree with Gina*Baby 100% on her choice of oil change interval.

I sure love these oil change discussions.

 

Unless it's an oil thread. Then draw swords.

Anecdotal evidence incoming:

I just took my GE on a 1500 mile roadtrip with 15% oil life remaining. I returned with 10% remaining. I then took it on another 800 mile road trip. I returned with 5% remaining.

Makes sense right? The oil doesn't get beat up much on the interstate. What really kills your oil life is short trips. This is because the minder is accounting for the condensation that builds up inside the motor and goes into the oil that is not burnt off since the car never reached operating temp, in addition to the extra fuel it's dumping that's not really getting burnt because you never got out of the ECU's open loop operation. This is my understanding at least.

I never make short trips and my OCI is ~10k miles. If it's that close I just walk. It's good for you and it's good for your car

 

Doesn't the car judge the remaining life of the oil by shining a light through it and measuring how dark/opaque it is? Less light should reach the sensor as the oil gets dirty and dark. For some reason I though that's how those oil life gauges worked but I'm not sure where I heard that. Seems like that would be a reliable indicator and more accurate than estimating oil health based on driving habits.

Edit: Nevermind, I just Google'd it. There are two methods. One is the ECU estimates the oil health based on driving data, the other is to directly measure the health of the oil using sensors, none of which are a light to measure opacity like I thought.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-...-indicator.htm

 

Mechanics are not engineers. They are not statisticians. They don't keep data on which car had oil changes at which mileages and then follow the cars to see what repairs they needed. So a mechanic telling you that he learned 30 years ago from a guy who learned from another guy 30 years before that when to change oil is not relevant.


If you want to change your oil every 3000 miles it's your car but it's also your money and the planet's oil.

 

I'm a bit concerned about the oil life indicator. I've put on 8,000 miles since I bought the new Fit in December, mostly highway driving, and the indicator shows it still has 30% oil life.

I called the service dept and was informed that I don't need an oil change until the quality falls to 10%. Is that normal?

 

Yes, that's very much normal, and very much in line with what I've experienced (doing mostly highway-ish driving as well). It also sounds like you have a pretty decent and honest dealer.