Just check regularly.

 

Checking regularly also lets you see the trend in the oil level, which is also very good to know:

• If it's basically not changing—that's great, your engine seems healthy.
• If it's going down slowly—that's OK; you're burning a bit of oil, which is not abnormal.
• If it's going down more quickly—you're either burning a lot of oil or have a little leak or something.
• If it's going up—bad news, you may well have a blow head gasket or other engine problems. (You may also just have some condensation and fuel blow-by, and aren't making long enough trips to get the engine oil warmed sufficiently to evaporate them out. Making at least an occasional longish trip, an hour or more, is good for the life of the oil.)

(If your gas level is your oil level, you have a two-stroke engine and the above doesn't apply. )

 

If it was my car, I would have the oil in the trunk and add it. Its not going to be a problem not to at half a litre low. But Ive always been in the habit of checking and topping it off when its down a half. I figure its capacity is less than 4L, so I prefer to be cautious.

 

Jus wait till da wrench logo light up dats wat honda dealership told me

 

eh, wot ?

Do the oil change interval yourself; depending on a computer is risky.

 

Computer is not risky.

This has been discussed in another oil change thread. Or maybe on the first page of this one.

The computer watches your driving habits and etc which determines your oil life. If you driver harder and further distances constantly computer registers it and acts accordingly.

Many members on this board do go by the wrench.

 

I think there are two different things being discussed. oil change interval using the computer is what I'll be doing. but as the manual says, its not checking the oil level.
I'll still be checking my oil lever regularly and topping it off if its down.

 

Its not quite that sophisicated; and having built computers since 1978 I beg to disagree that computers are more trustworthy than doing your own checking by chronology. Just as you say, the computer doesn't check the level - nor the viscosity of the oil. Nor the pressure drop in theoil filter. When you depend on changing oil and filter every 5000 miles if its synthetic you're a lot better off than waiting for the blinking lite.

 

The computer can count miles and do more than just count miles. It doesn't check the level nor the viscosity but how are you checking viscosity? Or the pressure drop in the filter? Clearly the MM is more sophisticated than just reading the odometer.

If the oil doesn't need changing until 8000 - 9000 miles (which seems about average according to the people posting here) then changing at 5000 miles is a needless expense of time and money. Is it a little better for the car to have more frequent oil changes? Sure, maybe a tiny bit. On the other hand every time you change the oil you introduce the small possibility of error. Just like the guys in the shop may get distracted and screw something up, we can too. We can not tighten something enough, tighten it too much... forget something... and if you use twice as many oil filters you double the chances of running into a defective one.

 

Members of this board have used the maintenance minder intervals and then sent oil samples to Blackstone labs for testing. By all accounts I've read on here test results showed the MM does a pretty good job, and Blackstone said you could actually go a little longer than what the MM says.

I just follow the minder and my intervals usually end up around 8-9k. I have no oil consumption at 70k miles using Mobil 1 5w20.

 

we have a lab here that we have used to follow the viscosity, the increase in weight of the oil filter, and the colorimeter for content of impurities. While we agree with Mobil that the oil can last for as much as 25,000 miles, we find a significant increase in impurity content , drop in viscosity, and the weight of the oil filter (which confirms the impurity content when it doesn't change much), indicating its full and the oil then bypasses the filter increases significantly after 6,000 miles. And yes since the last weighng we have recommended to many that oil and filter changes can be delayed to 6k miles without hardship. Its a condition of the small filter volume because quick oil pressure build up is very important to engine life. Now there's no guarantee that those will be deterimental to engine life the longer you wait it is the more likely the detrioration., We use the odometer mileage, as well as time, as the best measure of being sure that the engine is best served, As the ad says"you can pay me now, or a lot more later". Its true, many of our customers are competitive types who think 6500 rpm is normal and it is also true " the harder you use your engine, or the less you use it, the more you need synthetic oil, and short oil change intervals.
We have cars here that have the oil and filter replaced every few hundred miles - race track miles.
Our contention is saving money on oil and filter changes is as useless as the ad says. So take your pick; neither of us are wrong. We're just more conservative. And know better than trust a computer that shows 8k miles to oil change when we just finished a 3 hour race and the measured viscosity doesn't agree.

 

The weight of the oil filter? I'd think that minute differences in the amount of oil that just happens to be in the filter between two weighings would vastly exceed the weight of any impurities trapped in the filter.

 

I hope you never sneeze onto the filter before you weigh it, LOL.

+++++++++++++++

Seriously,

I think Honda realizes the point mahout makes. Witness:

1. Low usage cars are recommended to have the oil replaced at least once a year, regardless of % left on the MM

2. Performance models such as the Civic Si and S2000 spec heavier oil (and, I believe, more frequent oil changes) than the "civilian" models that spec 0w-20 (previously 5W-20)


+++++++++++++

When we were racing, we would use a *relatively* light synthetic oil, on the theory that the reduction in pumping losses and friction would give us that little bit of an "edge". (<--- You wouldn't know it from our race results, though. )

We DID change oil every race weekend.

 

If you rock Mobile1 or Castrol, you should be good to ride it till the wrench.

Since 2007 that is the signal for an oil change and tire rotation. I haven't had any issues at all by waiting for the wrench to come on. Sometimes in the winter I did let it get into the negative countdown due to long snowboarding trips. But having said that, the wrench has never failed me. Never needed to do a top up on oil, but now that my car is getting older I should be monitoring the dipstick in between oil changes and to add oil accordingly.

OP, every couple of weeks, depending on your driving habits, when you go to fill up for gas, pop your hood, take a look at the oil level. You may not need to add oil in between your oil changes, but by checking you will know for certain. If your oil appears to go down in between your checks and is leaning closer to the lower marker, then top her up with the proper amount of oil. After reading this thread, and doing my oil change a week ago, I know keep the last little bit of oil that was not used in my trunk, just in case I notice I need a top up.

 

It would be nice to know what parameters the MM looks at besides milage.

 

We start with weighing a fiter filled to the brim with clean oil and subsequently weighing every thousand miles of use. With our scale with an accuracuy of .05 grams (< 2 thousandths of an ounce) we found a gain of 5 to 8 grams between weighings was usual and after the 6000 mile mark we didn't see even 2 grams so the oil was bypassing the filter and contaminants were just circulating in the oil sytem. Before each weighing we'd pour the drained oil into the filter til it was to the brim.
So the increase in filter weight was measureable. And though 5 to 8 grams is less than half an ounce it was measureable. Running colorimeter exams were always in agreement though I wouldn't say the correlation was exact. We also checked the liquid drained to see how much contaminants was in the liquid oil and knowing the free volume corrected the weight change to determine just what was contained in or on the filter media. Usually the liquid had only a gram or so in the fitrate. It did increase with the mileage.

 

We haven't been able to find anything in t program besides odometer mileage but it could include rpm sampled over a certain rpm.

 

From past posts here, the MM seems to take into account RPM, cold starts, and time (stop & go traffic without racking up mileage). Seems to do the job.


Maintenance codes other than oil changes come up at a programmed mileage, but are only displayed when the oil changes are due. So for example, if your driving conditions warrant oil changes at 6000 miles, it might tell you to also rotate tires. But if your oil can go 9000 miles, it will display the code then, not earlier.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

I'm sure many on here would too but none of the info is readily available. So it probably falls under "proprietary" and/or "intellectual property."