Honda maintenance schedule goes against what i know

[NoSoupforyou]

so back in July 2016 i got a new Honda Civic EX-HS. No issues with it yet. Every thing i know from previous cars and motorcycles say to change the oil often and frequent. And that on motorcycles first service is at 1k km.

I booked my first service early. Maintenance minder was at 30% and had about 8k km on it. The dealer almost wanted to send me away as it was too early but i insisted on getting it done. Just seems so wrong to have to wait so long. When i got the car back from service they put a sticker on it which read that next service is at 16.5 k km or 15%. Also seems odd the oil Honda uses, never heard of 0W20 before.

Had the service done in Jan/Feb 2017. I am at around 12.5k km and 50% now. Do not drive it much in summer(good weather) as i use a motorcycle for fun (Yamaha FZ07) and 125cc scooter (Yamaha BWs125) for short trips.

Is this the new normal now? Is it a waste of money if i want to change the oil "early"?

 

[RLGL]

New normal. Go by the maintenance minder or annually, which ever comes first. 0W20 oil has been around for a while.

 

[HarryLui]

My 2000 Honda Insight calls for 0-20w oil. Yes, change oil too early is a waste of money, HOWEVER, check your oil level once in a while! People don't check their oil level and if the car uses oil, your will have a broken engine.

I sent my oil to be analyzed and this is what they said.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Similar situation here: finally bought a newer car, it's an Acura (Honda) with the maintenance minder and supposedly goes 8,000 miles between oil changes. I asked a couple mechanics about it, and yeah, it's the new normal. Lighter oils like 0w20 let the engine work better and more efficiently, and full synthetics last longer between oil changes.

There's some footage online of a VW engine that made 120k km before its first oil change. The engine was basically ruined, but that's still longer than some people keep their cars.

I've been an "every 3,000 miles" guy all my life, so I don't have it in me to let the maintenance minder go all the way to 0%, but doing it every 5-6k miles (at the same time I have my tires rotated) is convenient and not super-expensive. ($35 for both at a local shop.)

 

[Yuriman]

My 17 year old Honda uses 0w20. It was changed every 10,000 miles (16k km) for the last 230,000mi (370k km). The engine doesn't burn a drop of oil and has immeasurably different compression from the day it rolled off the lot. 0w20 is actually a lot thicker than the oil Honda has been using for almost 2 decades in both Europe and Japan - their NEXT oil is something like a theoretical -20w6, if such a thing existed in the 'states. Changing every 3k is a total waste of time when there's evidence to suggest most modern synthetic oils don't show much change until 15-25k miles. Depending on your engine you might want to change the filter more frequently.

 

[JulesMaximus]

My Mercedes is every 10k miles. I check the oil a few times in between usually adding about 1/2 a quart once between oil changes.

Manufacturer recommends Mobil 1 0W30 so that's what I put in it.

 

[NoSoupforyou]

Thanks everyone. ya my old school brain is still stuck in the change every 4000km mindset. I check the car over every week before i use it. Mostly just use the car on Sunday morning, scooter on Friday and motorcycle on Saturday and Sunday(afternoon) Each week i check tire pressure and fluid levels on all.
That will change soon as mid October the motorcycle goes into hibernation so i will use the car more often.

One of the reasons i got the car i did was due to it was one of the few cars out there that still use port injection. There are too many horror stories out there of GDI engines and carbon build up. This will probably be the last car i have so did not want maintenance headaches at 40k + km.

 

[WackyDan]

THe new normal... Even for bikes.

My new bike was 3000 miles for first service and oil changes every 9300 miles there after... and that is on a semi-synthetic blend.

My 2012 F-150 calls for 7500-10,000 miles between changes unless it has a harsh duty cycle. Now, that engine also has an 8 quart pan so that is part of it. I run Motocraft (Ford) semi-synthetic in it and generally get between 5000 and 6500 miles out of a change but that is because I tow a heavy trailer.

My wife's old 2005 Malibu I let go to 5000-6000 miles on conventional oil. Doesn't hardly use any oil in that time span and I've sent out oil for analysis once on it to verify I wasn't changing too often. Going by the analysis I could get another 1000 miles out of each change easily.

I also did oil analysis on my truck and that one is a bit hard to zero in on thanks to the towing but I found I was well within my change interval there too.

FYI.. The new oil change sensors in the new vehicles are actually quite good and should give you a good representation of when you are due a change. The same advice still applies though - Generally you still want to change once a year if you aren't hitting your mileage between changes. It's funny as I went from putting a ton of miles on my vehicles in a year back when we changed every 3k miles... Now I work from home and my wife is a stay at home mom and we put about 5500 a year on the truck and maybe 7-8k on her car so I change the oil once a year on the truck and every 9-10 months on the car. The bike at 9300 interval will probably get changed once a year as I put maybe 6-8k a year on that.