We seldon drive our 2011' Accord EX V6 in town so basically all miles put on it are at 75 mph on a 4-lane highway comutting to my job in a city 60 miles away from our home. We have owned our Accord for 1 year this month and have just turned 29k miles on it.

The Maintenance Minder on our Honda has been recomending oil changes at 8.5k miles while the computer within our 2011' Chevy Silverado has been recomending oil changes around 4,500 miles because it is driven around town 90% of the time.

Prior to buying these new 2011's last year, I have always changed my vehicle oil around 3,000 miles. The dealers are now recomending that we all follow our car's computer recomended oil changes because the computer can see exactly how we drive our vehicles and because its becoming more ecologically respocible to maximise your oil life rather than drain out with many usable miles left in it.

I am curious to hear from other late model Honda owners to hear just how many miles their Maintenance Minder is recomending between their oil changes?

 

It really varies from owner to owner. The Maintenance Minder indicates "calculated" engine oil life. Keep in mind, the oil life is calculated based on engine operating conditions, etc.; it does not actually analyze the oil quality or the level. For example, some people drive longer trips, some shorter trips, some people in traffic a lot, some drive it hard and rev it up, etc.

Generally, you will hear some people say to change it when it reach 15% oil life. With the exception of the first oil change (there is molybdenum in the engine to help during engine break-in), I personally would not go all the way to 15%. You can and may not experience any problems.

For me, I use synthetic motor oil and I always change every 5,000 to 7,500 miles; my maintenance minder indicator would indicate around 40% - 30% estimated remaining oil life , respectively, when I change it. Most of my trips are long drives without too much traffic and I do not drive it hard.

 

My daughters have 2007 Civics and I've had the used-oil analyzed after the maintenance-minder gets to 10%. Blackstone says it's still good, so I continue to run it to 15% or so. That's with Castrol GTX 5w-20, so if you use a different oil it'll probably have a different additive package so you should do your own test.