We have a 2016 Fit with 15k miles, so we really don't drive it a lot. This kind of messes with classic 10k = 1 year service philosophies. I can do some simple maintenance on our Fit myself but anything requiring getting under the car (e.g., oil changes) or special familiarity in this era of no service manuals I leave to a local car place so I kind of have to work with them. They are fairly well regarded but I still like to know what is going on, plus you never know how good the people set to doing such as oil changes really are. On the other hand it is a bit of a trek to the nearest Honda turn-it-over-to-them-with-a -blank-check-and-forget-it dealership where they will charge an arm and a leg for the most simple of tasks. For example, apparently it take about 3 minutes and flipping 4 latches to change the engine air filter so that I can do. I am used to maintaining a 1981 Corolla where intervals and record keeping are clear-cut.

From reading the manual it seems for the most part there's no longer the "get X done every Y miles" and everything depends upon the electronic Maintenance Minder (MM). I took out Fit in for its annual (3rd) oil change today and noted most of the garage had checks next to all all but one item; "monitor" next to engine air filter. I don't know if this was from looking at it or if it was from the MM. That said, they did reset the change oil to 100% life, but I don't know if in doing this it reset everything else the MM might have popped up. If MM says something like "change the air filter every 8th oil change" which for most people might mean every 3 years, well in our case might mean not until the car is 8 years old! So how do we work with this? How does the Maintenance Minder work, and how can I integrate this into keeping an eye on services being performed by a service garage, and also integrate it into doing things myself? I guess the idea is when a notice pops-up you get the task done, but on a low mileage car I suspect I need to work on a separate schedule for some services.

What if I change the air filter myself? I am presuming there isn't some way I can tell MM I just did that.

 

I'm with you. Particularly when you are going on a trip and you don't want to be reminded when you are on vacation. For me, I will do most of the maintenance every 3 years or 45K miles, 60K for the first CVT transmission fluid. Ouch, that Honda stuff is expensive, $15/qt x3.5 quarts. That should be on the safe side by not having to deal with the maintenance minder. The oil quality minder I use because I do my own oil change when it indicates 20 to 25%. Resetting the MM is an easy task. Follow the instructions.

 

Like you I have low mileage, about 5KM/year and the MM doesn't make sense, so I totally ignore the MM. I do an oil change once a year and always change the oil filter at the same time. I check and change air filters once a year. Next year at the 3 year point I'll be changing the CVT fluid (myself) and the brake fluid (dealer) and so on. I do virtually everything myself except for brake stuff, and I religiously log everything, and fluids used and I take pictures with a camera of some of the work like oil changes being done. When the MM pops up with anything I simply reset it because I'll have already done anything it brings up. I have set my own schedule for everything and it is one that I am comfortable with which is superior to what Honda has programmed into the silly MM.

 

The engine air filter's easy enough to change every 20 or 30 thousand miles and it's inexpensive enough to not drive yourself crazy with worrying about intervals. For the cabin air filter, you can simply take it out and bang it against something to shake the dust and leaves out of it, and if it looks dirty, replace it.

 

Thanks for the feedback everybody. I just did the engine air filter myself. I bought it at NAPA but I think it was almost $30 so I might try to find a less expensive source.

 

Check into a K&N engine filter: https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/gene...ally-work.html

I'm on my second cleaning, so it's pretty much paid for itself at this point. After cleaning it out, I did see a slightly better MPG on my trip to work the next morning.

I just keep the old slightly dirty air filter and use that for the day or two that the k&n takes to dry. I've only been cleaning it in the summer, so really it takes about a day to dry after washing it. Then oil and let it soak for about an hour and you can use it.

 

In looking at a published maintenance schedule, it says to change spark plugs at 60,000. I just hit 60K and bought a set of NGK plugs. I changed the air filter, will get the cabin filter and was wondering about a maintenance manual so I can do the valve adjustment. I'm not in tune with the maintenance minder and would like to know miles in between service to be better prepared. I gave up on my first generation Honda Insight because I was not going to buy a third big battery.
robert

 

when my ima battery goes , I plan to remove it / delete the ima battery and drive it purely as an ICE car.

or .... just dump it / sell it off, lol