I like the oil life indicator, gives me another option for checking the oil. I continually check the oil to see it's color and viscosity, along with paying attention to the number of miles between oil changes.

And I usually go for the overkill frequent oil changes. It helps more than hurts . And is one of the reasons why my old 13 year old Mazda is still working well. I prefer to spend a little bit more money here and there to have my car last longer. I am the type of person that will drive a car until it dies.

Oil changes are very cheap and infrequent compared to using gasoline. People are so worried about giving more money to oil companies, you should then worry more about your driving habits to optimize your fuel economy. You will waste alot more money per year on gasoline than from frequent oil changes.

 

50 years ago I worked in service stations (note the word service) and one day an engineering student from the University of Wisconsin stopped in and during our conversation he said that oil does not wear out, it just gets dirty. He said you only needed to change oil every 10,000 miles as long as you changed the filter each time. For the past 50 years I have taken that advice and the experience is as follows: 30 year old Chevy van with 210,000 miles and no engine work -- still runs great. 15 year old Civic with 190,000 miles and running great except student daughter is playing bumper cars with it. Other cars with lesser milage and no engine problems. I will follow Honda's recommendations unless it is less than 10,000 miles between oil changes.

 

And the Internet will never be popular. Seriously, times have changed, engines have changed, parts and materials have changed. Don't waste your money. It's not even insurance - it's like buying a gallon of milk and always buying a new gallon and throwing it out the half full one still in the fridge, even if it's nowhere near the expiration date. That's not insurance that you'll always have milk, that's throwing perfectly good milk away.

 

The interval on my Jetta was 10k miles, but I noticed that around 7k the oil would start to disappear, so I always changed it 5-6k miles, mobile one 5w30. No data for the Fit yet from me... but given that the motor is newer than vw's vr6, and less power/heat, and less/smaller cylinders for exhaust to slip by, the oil should last even longer.

 

wow some folks love typing away... man wish i could type properly!!!

 

You changed way to early. You should follow the owners manual.

 

I've been doing car work on my cars and my buds cars for 8+ years now. I've seen some engines that get oil changes every 4k with sludgy heads, and sometimes cars that are neglected and have no sludge. Many factors cause the sludge.

I'll trust the minder as to what interval to change the oil. I've been doing the same with our Odyssey, and the oil is still clean when I dump it. Honda knows how to build motors, and they know how to make them last.

 

Wrong. Your way off base. If you own stock in Lube Stop or whatever then your point makes sense, otherwise follow the manufacturers recommended oil change schedule. Why would they want to lie?

 

Same thing happened when I went with my sis to change her 06 Civic oil. She had about 3k and he said that her indicator was only at 40% so she should wait till it got to 15-10%.

I spoke w/my warranty administrator today and she said as long as you followed the car's computer maintenance recommendations that the car will be fine. It's set up to adjust according to your driving and conditions. She didn't change her own oil until it was almost 10k. We did agree though that regardless of the recommendations we would change it at at the latest 5k.

 

Because our yearly driving conditions can vary widely from 32C to -32C I checked the Honda Canada site and found this info regarding the maint.
minder.

http://honda.ca/HondaCA2006/YourHond...TrimID=261&L=E

By the way, anyone notice the Indy 500 used all Honda engines and not one engine failure?

 

I am glad I changed my oil. Yes, I feel better about the oil life indicator capabilities, but will still change my oil more than most. WHY? Because I live in rural, DUSTY, minnesota. The oil life doesn't take into consideration dust. I am also planning on changing my air filter earlier too. If you lived on rural roads you would understand my concerns. In the winter I will not be as concerned about dust so please don't ostracize me for paying a little money for upkeep in the summer months. By the way, I had 38.4MPG on my first full tank after changing the oil. That's is with the sport auto.

 

I don't understand why people who don't want to change their oil is giving the guys who do a hard time

you do your thing
i do mine

in terms of the milk ****ogy, I had bought milk that has an expiration date of one month, but after two weeks, it started to slowly go bad.. so do i keep drinking it and blindly follow the expiration date? NO.. i take into consideration other circumstances, such as the dust issue noted above.. then make an INFORMED decision

yes, honda say they won't void your warannty, etc.. but when it comes to it later down the road, outside of your warranty period, who pays? YOU do

i have 7 hondas in my family and the first 88 accord lasted almost 550 thousand miles

-joe

 

Hard time because it's wasteful, just like I give a hard time to coworkers who throw their pop cans away when the recycling container is 20 feet from their desk. So the ****ogy stands and it's wasteful not to just use the maintenance minder.

 

for argumment sake, if the minder is broken.. does that mean somebody can potentially never change their oil?

as i say, you do what you do, and i do what i do..

-joe

 

Exactly. Out of order, out of mind.

 

Wow, that's awesome. Longest I've driven a car (85 Honda Civic wagon) was about 250k. How exactly do you put that many miles on a car? Drive around the world a few times?

 

Are we done here?

 

After reading all the back and forth about when to take the Fit in for its first oil change, I called the service dept. where I bought my Fit and asked about the oil life indicator and whether I should rely on it for the very first oil change. He said yes -- with the caveat that I should not wait beyond the 10% mark. He assured me that I could trust Honda and the owner's manual and not worry about advice to the contrary. I have talked with several people who hang onto their cars for many years and I get a number between 3,500 and 7,500. My mechanic (Honda certified) says 3,500.

On another related topic -- I heard that manufacturers of some of the new vehicles are claiming that the transmissions do not require a fluid change at all. I can't remember what she bought, but a lady I talked to at a service station told me she was advised to replace the whole transmission at 30,000 miles rather than attempting to flush it out! Anyone heard of this?

 

Not true at all. Too frequent oil changes can damage your catalytic converter permanently. Have fun replacing one of those for $200+ while still spending more money on redundant oil changes.

I love the justification people constantly come up with for wasting resources.

What are you checking an oil's color for anyhow? To see if it's doing its job?

 

The advice you got on the oil changes is spot on. Honda's company history shows that Honda cares more about Quality and Reliability than Marketing. The top ten Honda executives are mostly Engineers, and they run the company as an Engineering firm. Their vehicles are some of the most reliable cars in the world for a reason. They built their name after a long time and would not destroy their good name by saving customers a few bucks.

In regards to what the "lady at the service station" told you...that is absolute lunacy. Just another typical, shady ass, corrupt service station trying to make $1k+ on a job.

For MT cars, assuming you are using Honda MTF, I would suggest changing the fluid every 10k miles. Honda's MTF has been known to shear under extreme conditions and, in order to protect the tranny, I would play it safe and change it every 3 oil changes or so. I wouldn't worry so much about ATF...every 30k miles or whatever the manual calls for.