It's based on the fact that oil breaks down. This precaution tells you how much the oil and filter combo you use, can go before needing to be replaced.
I've gone to 12k-15k intervals with my mid 90s nissan, thanks to this precaution, but that's cause I knew my engine could, not because others with the same car could.
As for manufacturer directions, I don't have the manual with me, but other than going off the MM there are no directions/recommendations, or is there something mentioned? If there isn't then you can't really do anything extreme other than letting the MM go into the negatives, right?
I was just trying to give advice, I'm sorry for coming off as a douche.

 

Indeed. Oil does break down. And you can certainly choose to have this analysis done and/or change your oil every 3000 miles if you want. I'm simply stating that the reason why those things would be given as much weight (or more) than the manufacturer's recommendation is due to history. If we could wipe the slate clean and never know about previous out-dated recommendations we probably wouldn't be questioning whether Honda got their maintenance recommendations correct or not. We didn't question if they knew what they were doing when they built the car. I'm not going to start questioning whether or not they got it right with regard to maintenance. In fact, if anything there is an incentive (at least for their dealer network) to recommend more frequent oil changes. Therefore, the fact that the MM would have most people getting oil changes at 7500+ (in many cases 10,000+) must speak to the fact that they have intimate knowledge of how their engines work and how they break down oil. From my standpoint it just seems wasteful (resources and money) to do something that is not based on anything other than a feeling or an old out-dated recommendation.

 

My Dad used to change the engine oil in his 1967 Chrysler New Yorker every 2000-3000 miles. It was an absolute calamity for him if it went over that.

Times have changed significantly from those days... new oils are better while the engines are different.

I'm following the MM for my oil changes and not going to 2nd guess the Honda engineers on this one.

 

I would change the oil now. Since it's your first oil change, I recommend that you use conventional motor oil. Then if you want, you can change to synthetic after 3,000 miles.

 

There is supporting documentation. It's in the Euro manuals for the Jazz(Fit) that says 12,500miles. It's been posted in the other threads that have beaten this horse to a fine pulp.

 

I guess I may be in the minority that dogs out the fit. I get to 15% at around 6k miles or so. I do redline the engine (5mt), just about at every launch once the engine is warm, and regularly down shift for passing.

I do use mobile 1 though, which should help considering the way I drive. I still get around 30 mpg with the way I drive. Haha.

 

This would seem to imply that engine revs count- which is a more accurate cause of wear than miles, don't you think?

 

Fuel & Distance. Think about it.

 

If you'll note, it wasn't directed as a response to you. That quote was at the bottom of the post which quoted two different individuals (of which your post was the first.)

There's no guarantees in life. (save for Death, Taxes, & spam - email or food, you pick, they'll both last forever). The MM is designed to monitor the environment in which you drive and determine how Oil will break down using the many variables involved. I trust Honda's engineers and also the fact that I'm getting excellent fuel economy plus I'm spending a tiny amount more on Synthetic. I could send it to Blackstone but why? I'm doing exactly what the engine and oil is designed to do and unlike many others, i'm not a skeptic in regards to progress. Unless you track or AutoX a vehicle, the only reason to have it analyzed is because you don't believe that the engine is capable of what the manufacturer has stated and you need to relieve your own skepticism. Maybe i'm too "trusting" in Honda's design of an engine but I tend to think that everyone else is too paranoid or skeptical of those who actually know what they are doing at Honda R&D. All of my Hondas have added up to over half a million miles and everyone ran like a top. Each was driven a little differently but maintained within Honda's recommended interval.

Reading back through this, I guess I am a tiny bit skeptical. I did use synthetic. If I wasn't, I'd be using conventional oil.

~SB

 

Luckily it's only your money your wasting.

 

It's everyone's money. By changing oil unnecessarily, perfectly good Oil is disposed of and needs to be processed properly (which costs everyone). also The more people change their oil unnecessarily, the longer it will take to cut our dependence on oil. Imagine how much oil wouldn't be used if everyone could go from a 3K oil change to a 10K oil change. (about 1/3 of the oil would be needed. The more people change their oil, the worse it is for the envrionment (again, everyone pays).

granted, one or two people really wont make MUCH of a difference but every little bit helps.

also over 100,000 miles, a 10K change (when most MM reach 15%) would men about 40QT of oil is used or about 10 gallons instead of 40 Gallons used for a 3K oil change. Multiply 30 gallons (unnecessary oil changes) by the number of FitFreak members who own a GE8 (not sure how the GD3 handles oil) to see what the difference would be in a 100K mile period.

Edit: I did some math. There are 40K members of this site, over 3K members with 30 posts or more so I'll use that as a base. (say 1/2 are GE8 owners making 1500 legit members of this site as our test pool). Over 100,000 miles, just on GE8 owners who visit this site somewhat regularly, over 45,000 Gallons of oil would not be used if everyone followed the MM schedule. (Granted, many of us do now, and also many do not get 10K on an oil change but 6K or 7K... but, there is also probably more than 1,500 GE8 owners on this site and besides... the numbers are just an example.) If honda sells 100K fits per year, that's 3 MILLION gallons of refined oil that would likely not be used if all fits went by the MM and got to 10K miles on an oil change (over a 100K mile period). Lets take a drastic cut and... Say half... didn't meet the criteria. that's 1.5 MILLION gallons of oil - still a WHOLE lot.


Oh.. then there's Evil... he gets 3K to an oil change using the MM so he doesn't count.
~SB

 

5560 miles and 50% on the dummy meter...lol

 

SB - did you wake up dreaming about oil??? That's 35714 barrels, though not crude. Too much caffeine after 9PM will do that to you ;-)

 

Had to sign up after reading this hilarious thread. Start with this. There are some elderly people who check their mail 3 times a day. There are OC type people who wash their hands 10 times a day. Really, they're not helping the mail get there quicker, and they're not stemming any pandemics, but, also, they're not really harming anything. They're just goofy. The dude in this thread who is following 1952 Ford Falcon oil change protocol because he is afraid of goblins is just one of them. He's not really hurting anybody, and the car is going to minutely better off for his compulsion. He may, for example, be able to get a few dozen more miles out of his camshaft before it seizes at 300,000 miles. Funny thing about modern cars is that, for the JP makes at least, it's almost never a major engine issue that ends the life of the car. But, a dog only knows what a dog knows, and so one can't be shocked when the dog barks at the moon. Perhaps it "costs everyone" in the figurative sense of the word, in that it costs resources, but, really, that's so ridiculously small so as to compete quite well with the silliness of the guy changing the oil every 3k. You sound young and hopeful. I hate to be the guy who throws a bit of water on that vigor, but, seriously, we've been "cutting our dependence on foreign oil" since Carter. It's lead to our imported oil volume going up tremendously as our national production has declined. Here's the rub kid - we love to use oil and its products. We're never, ever going to stop. We're going to use it all up. Every drop. The reason is quite simple - there are no alternatives to oil. There are inferior, partial substitutes that will offset some oil usage, but, in the big picture, with no oil you don't drive a car. Yeah kid. Like I said. I love the spirit and all, but 1.5 million gallon of oil is a fraction of a drop. The world burns through about 72 million barrels of oil. A day. So 42 gallons per barrel is about 3 billion gallons a day. Figure once a year oil changes and you're talking 1 trillion gallons a year. To your 1.5 million. Point is, the world runs on oil, and the notion that we all need to "conserve" and "save" oil to "reduce dependence" and "save the environment" are quaint notions that are meaningless if you comprehend how critical oil is to the economy. The worst kind of "environmentalist" is the person who believes that higher MPG cars are some sort of answer. They're not. Whether everybody drives a hummer or everybody drives a pious, the result is the same - we will burn all the oil and we will make our habitat less livable for humans. The Toyota Pious drivers don't get it. If they really want to preserve their habitat, they should stop driving, eat as little as possible, and live in the woods.

 

There will be an alternative to oil... if there isn't we all need to get used to walking and saddling up on the horses again. The alternatives are being slowly developed but the changes are not going to happen overnight as it is a major deal. There has to be a lot going on the background we don't know... including fierce resistance from the fuel industry who want to keep things the way they are.

I bought the Fit for efficiency, low operating costs and reliability. I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot in terms of operating costs by changing the oil any more frequently than the MM suggests. In fact, the owner's manual is quite explicit about the first oil change and not draining it before the MM indicates it is time. I'm not going to bother 2nd guessing Honda engineering on this one and go with their recommendations.

Oh ya, I'm 54...

 

I'm with you 100% on not 2nd guessing Honda. Their product hasn't failed me yet. I'm no engine engineer.

We will be saddling up the horses again. There is no alternative to oil. There are only poor substitutes. It's the white elephant in the room.

We've been running ICEs for over 100 years, and we are only a small amount better than we were then.

What price of gasoline will make it obvious that there are no alternatives? 20?

There is only a great unwind as the modern world is force-weaned off of cheap, liquid energy.

 

There are alternatives today, just none that are cost effective given cheap oil.

There will always be oil; as the price increases as extraction becomes more costly other forms of energy and transportation will be more attractive.

My bet is still on nuclear, even with Japan's problems with 40 year old designs. Current generation reactors have passive safety systems so shutdown without external power isn't an issue. Nuclear waste is a problem, but I think it's an acceptable risk.

Electricity storage is a problem, but plug in hybrids make this less of a concern. Even these aren't cost effective with $4 gasoline.

It's a question of cost. Some of us will be walking or buying Fits.

 

I agree in principle, but I'd phrase it like this: Without cheap oil, nothing can allow us to continue to live the modern life as it now exists, and it must change substantially toward what life was like before oil was discovered. Here's the thing. What good is tar sand oil, shale oil, biofuel diesel, or a nuclear energy charge on your battery if it costs 25 bucks a gallon? The answer is that most of what makes modern life modern ends when we are forced to go to the quasi-alternatives and the price per energy unit is 10 times what it is today. Let me put it this way. Who would spend 15 bucks a gallon for fuel oil to heat his or her house? Answer - only rich people. Everybody else wears layers.

 

Given that the alternatives will end up costing much less than that, I'm much less apocalyptic than you. Solar, nuclear, wind, etc all produce energy at costs less than the equivalent of $25/gallon for gas. Scaled up, then energy cost should actually come down.

 

BTW - all things are derivatives of oil, in one way or another. Processing uranium is extremely energy intensive. So is digging coal. Forget about making PV cells - extremely energy intensive process. Batteries? Yup. Point is, as oil price goes up, all of the those things will increase in price, because all use oil. Can you picture a giant excavator digging up yellow cake using a battery pack?