Hi everyone,
In my 2007 Honda Accord Coupe LX V6, I got the maintenance minder light, number 1, at 4,000 miles. The display said 15% oil life left. If this is extrapolated, this means the computer is saying that my oil lifewouldbe overat about 5,000 miles. I changed the oil and oi filter when it hit 4,271 miles and the computer saying 10% oil life left. I used 4.5 quarts of Mobil 1 5w-20.

I didn't think much about this until I started reading other user's posts andthese userssaying that their maintenance minder #1 light didn't come on till about the first7,500 miles!

Does this mean I am driving my car pretty hard, or in hard conditions, and thus should change the oil every 3 months or 3,000 miles regardless of the maintenance minder?!

I drive my Accord 5 days a week, 60 miles a day. I live in Southern California, so the summers are hot and winters moderately cold. Since it'sLos Angelestraffic, about 50 miles of that is pretty badstop-and-go traffic (typically max 10 mph with stop-and-go), and 10 miles of real highway speeds.

The oil from the first oil change was pretty dark, so I'm pretty concerned that my engine is being driven too hard. I'm aiming for 200K miles with this Accord!! (I plan to only use Mobil 1 at 5w-20, a transmission fluid change every 15K, and a wash+wax every month)!

Am I setting up my Accord for early failure by using it as my commuter vehicle as described above? Will changing the oil and transmission fluid more frequently prevent this??

Thanks!!

 

I would believe the maintenance minder. It's saying your driving is hard on the oil. You're not necessarily settingyour carup for problems, because you have the maintenance minder to keep track of your habits.

You mentioned changing every 3k miles regardless. I wouldn't do that. I'd continue to use the maintenance minder to say when it needs to be changed.

I don't know what you'd be able to do. You can't change the climate or the traffic... Maybe you can take it easy the first 10 minutes after starting the engine, & see if that makes much difference.

 

the "maintenence minder" that you are reading about that gets triggered every 7.5k miles is something what you'd be able to do. You can't change the climate or the traffic... Maybe you can take it easy the first 10 minutes after starting the engine, & see if that makes much difference.
different, that does NOT indicate an oil change, that indicates that you should refer to your manual and check what services need to be done to your vehicle. It is based purely on miles.

what you are looking at on your car is the oil life indicator, which is very different. the oil life indicator takes many variables from all over the engine and puts them together and figures out how long your oil will last based on those parameters. it is NOT based on the number of miles you travel, but rather how you drive, how many miles are on the car, how leadfooted you are, stopping + going, as well as numerous other variables. Follow this display, NOT the # of miles traveled. If it says change it, change it.

If it doesnt say to change your oil for 4k miles, your driving habits are about average. You should be fine, and this car should last a long time. Also, if your looking for a good oil, mobil 1 is good, but valvoline SynPower is one of the best big ones out there, (next to the REALLY good stuff of course, like royal purple and amsoil, which totally own). also be sure to ALWAYS use OEM transmission fluid, power steering fluid, and just about everything except engine oil.

Keep all that in mind and your car should last many many trusty years!

 

I'd say your stop and go commute is what's getting you to your 4k oil change interval. With a synthetic oil you'll have absolutely no issues with that interval. Just do the basic stuff like checking your oil level.

If you want to put you mind to rest, consider doing an oil analysis at your next 4k interval (using the synthetic) and see what you come up with.

As a sidenote, my '08 Accord 4cyl has a little over 2k on it and my oil life indicator is still at 90%.[sm=WTFsgign.gif] My commute is 115 miles a day but is mostly easy highway with a lttle stop and go occasionally. I suspect the indicator is about ready to drop to 80% and if that's the case, I'll go 10k between oil changes?

 

Your car will last much longer than 200k if you keep up the mainenance. Don't worry about that.

 

Does the indicator know if you use dino oil vs. synthetic? (i.e. will the indicator wait longer when using syn?)

 

Chilehead - what car are YOU talking about?

The earlier Accords (up to about 2005 or 6) it's ONLY based on miles. Nothing else but miles.

Newer Accords have a maintenance minder that DOES NOT MEASURE anything about the oil. It can't tell whether you put petroleum, synthetic, sewing-machine oil, or water in your crankcase. All it does is keep track of how you operate the engine. Stuff like how many times you start the engine, temperatures, how many times & how high you rev the engine. Basically a very detailed "diary" of everything you've done with the engine.

 

Thanks fore the response. I just purchased an 07 accord XE sedan 4-cyl (sold my 03 accord) and noticed this feature. So apparently its more detailed in evaluating the oil, but I assume it calculating it based on regular oil. If I use syn, then it appears that I'll be draining it before its life is used up. Before, I would change it in intervals of about 7500 miles and used Mobil 1 filters and pure syn oil. Is this sensor going to complicate things? I guess I'll just have to wait and see when it tells me to change it and see what mileage I'm at.

 

Yes, it's calculations are based on petroleum oil. If you want to go longer with synthetic oil, I'd get the oil analyzed to make sure it's OK to go longer. The only way the sensor complicates things is because I don't think you can reset it to 100% unless the maintenance warning is showing.

I've had oil analyzed (Castrol GTX 5w-20) and on my Civics it shows I can safely run the monitor all the way down to zero. I wasn't interested in cutting it any closer, and I wasn't interested in synthetic.

So you can do this...
1 - Run your synthetic oil until the monitor says zero%.
2 - Change oil & grab a sample for analysis. Reset the monitor to 100%.
3 - Have the test include "TBN" which indicates whether the oil's additives have been "used up".

Based on the TBN, the analysis lab will probably tell you how much longer you COULD HAVE used the oil.

If you can go 20 or 30% longer, then it might not be worth the price of synthetic. But in that case, I've been told the monitor will continue displaying down into negative numbers. So you can let the monitor go down to -20% for your next oil change. I'd get another analysis at that time to verify.

If oil analysis shows it can go DOUBLE, then you can do this:
1 - run it down to 0%
2 - reset it to 100% without changing oil
3 - run it down to 15% when the warning light comes back on.
THEN change oil & reset it to 100%.

 

Thanks, that sounds like a good plan. I'll try to post my results down the road for future Accordians who want to use synthetic oil.