Just purchased a 2016 Honda Accord LX. Something I'm not used to is not having a Maintenance Schedule, nor Warranty details.

Yes, I understand the cqr will "tell" me when it needs maintenance. However, I'm old school and would like to know when such things as the air filter, fuel filter, spark plugs, etc. should be changed. Typically, I am conservative and get these done a few thousand miles before they should be changed.

The Honda service desk had nothing they could provide to me; they noted the last time there was a maintenance service schedule was ~2010. Is there any place on line I can find this information, even if it goes as far back as 2010?

Ditto for the Warranty. The user manual has a 1/2 page 100,000 foot level description for all the warranties, but no details.

I'm also being told that warranty work can only be done at adealership. Is this true?

Signed,
An Accord newbie

 

Short answer, you *shouldn't* perform maintenance early; especially the first oil change.

The good news is, the onboard computers are programmed to err on the conservative side, no need to double down, and no benefit from doing so either. As for warranty work, yes, only a Honda service center can perform the warranty work, errr, unless you want to pay for it yourself.

 

The first oil chenage is on Honda. After that, I expect I will do my own oil changes every 5K miles. Yes, I understand this is probably more frequent than needed, but after talking with 2 different independents I work with, I'll keep to this schedule.

I know the oil type is 0 - 20.

What is recommeded, or does it matter - synthetic, partially synthetic, dyno (what I use in all my other non-Honda cars)?

Also, what filter is recommended? Currently, I only use Mann filters for all my cars.

Thanks

 

My comments:

• Personally I'll trust what the very highly trained and experienced Honda engineers say over what "2 different independents" say. FWIW, I'm an engineer and worked for Mercedes-Benz back when they were evaluating the move to synthetic oil; the science is pretty convincing and the results of millions and millions of miles of tests seal the deal.
• As far as I know, 0W-20 is only available as a full synthetic; that's been the case for years now, however, I occasionally hear rumors of someone trying to build a 0W-20 in a semi-synthetic form; personally I don't see the point.
• With the above in mind, 5,000 mile oil changes, unless said miles are sitting in Manhattan or LA traffic, is literally throwing away oil still in better shape than new conventional oil out of the jug. As a point of comparison, recent Honda's (pre the 0W-20 recommendation era) have been able to go a minimum of 10,000 miles on conventional 5W-20 for years now.
• Honda filters are a good bet; pretty much any other high quality filter (i.e. with a synthetic media) will do the job just as well; I prefer Napa Gold filters.

 

On my kids' 2007 Civics, I've done a couple used-oil analyses after letting the oil monitor tell me when to change it. All cases (including once when she went about 200 miles beyond the "0%" warning) the analysis said the oil was still usable for a longer interval.

Those cars called for 5w-20 and I used Castrol GTX which is non-synthetic. But it convinced me to trust Honda's programming of the oil life monitor.