Screw the Maintenance Minder System

[FrostyGT2]

Does anyone know if there are set mileages that I should be checking/replacing fluids and other maintenance? I'd like to do the maintenance myself but I called Honda and they gave me the run around to use the dealerships and Maintenance Minder.

[NIGHTHAWKSI]

what do you have against the maintnance minder?

[nayilsi]

screw minder B1.... freakin 127 bucks to do that.

[y2kedar]

Maintenance minder for the loss.....

I don't even have 3,000 miles on my Amsoil oil change and my oil life meter is at 30 percent...same it was with the conventional oil.

Crap just uses a mathematical formula to tell you that if you drive hard you change it around 4,000 and if you drive soft you can change your oil a lil longer.


So if you're using conventional oil and it looks nasty and you still have life on your oil life meter, change it anyways. Do not trust the oil life meter.

[NIGHTHAWKSI]

^the mainance minder cannot calculate for what it wasnt designed for. it was created with dino oil in mind...not amsoil, so what do you expect? it would tell you the same thing with water in there.

and its based on how regular oil breaks down with how hard you drive...so thats how it works.

[wbcooksey]

I'm ignoring my maintenance-minder also. I got 160k out of my 98 civic doing oil changes every 3k miles with standard Quaker State (not even a “blend”) and cheap oil filters (170k out of the previous accord doing the same thing). I never had a single problem with the 98 civic engine in 9 years, and it still ran great when I traded it in.

I WILL concede that changing oil every 3k miles might be a bit aggressive these days, so now I'm changing every 5k on my 07 R18. My stupid-ass maintenance minder never gets below 30% when I bring it in. I can tell the service guys REALLY want to tell me to wait, but they don't. And I'm not into rotating my tires every 10k either. I want to squeeze every last millimeter of tread out of them, so I rotate every 6k.

I already have 12k on the car in only 6 months.

William
03 Pilot + 07 Civic

[unplugged]

I know someone from work who changes their oil every 10k. The car has 180k miles on it now and no problems. As long as the oil is clean its fine. He changed the filter every 5k though and added a little oil to level it off.

I do my oil changes every 5k for daily driving and occasional track I might do.

[crxlvr]

i had 6700 miles on my car when it came on for the a1 service.

[ffswizzlestick]

Why is it that everyone thinks they know more about the car than the people who designed and built it?

[JEA86]

Originally Posted by ffswizzlestick

Why is it that everyone thinks they know more about the car than the people who designed and built it?

LOL isnt that how it always goes

[unplugged]

why is it for once when people are watching movie previews before the actual movie starts, everyone thinks they are a movie critic.

[ffswizzlestick]

I guess there are just unanswerable questions in this world.

[sh33t_0f_p4p3r]

Originally Posted by unplugged

why is it for once when people are watching movie previews before the actual movie starts, everyone thinks they are a movie critic.

cuz i payed the 9$ plus got the 5$drink and the 6$ popcorn, i should be able to say hey this looks like its going s**k b**ls

[Yodums]

Originally Posted by ffswizzlestick

Why is it that everyone thinks they know more about the car than the people who designed and built it?

Because it's not always right. You're relying on a single set of computations to tell the user to change their oil without knowing what kind of oil is even being used. The system will generally tell you to change your oil at around ~5,000 miles, but depending on the oil you use, it could last a lot longer than that.

The manual states that there's a special break in oil. It's really nothing more than Honda factory oil mixed with an additive that makes it look extremely dark.

Motor Oil 101

[ryker]

Originally Posted by ffswizzlestick

Why is it that everyone thinks they know more about the car than the people who designed and built it?

Didn't you know that the average Civic owner has a multi MILLION dollar garage and has the ability to do UOA (used oil anaylis) they also tear down the engine and measure them for wear. lol

[ryker]

Originally Posted by Yodums

Because it's not always right.

Why would it not be right?

You're relying on a single set of computations to tell the user to change their oil without knowing what kind of oil is even being used.

The Maintenance minder was DESIGNED around the ability of the recommended oil. If you use full synthetic then you just have extra security.

The MM should use numerous computations and they are much more accurate than the ignorant 3k changes. What the 3k miles was on a car in a very cold climate with all short trips less than 5 miles? What if the 3k was in a car driven in the very hot Arizona desert at wide open throttle all the time?

Where as the MM will take into count:

• engine load average
• hours of run time
• average RPM
• fuel consumption
• perhaps peak engine temps and average engine temps

The system will generally tell you to change your oil at around ~5,000 miles, but depending on the oil you use, it could last a lot longer than that.

The maintance minder in my wifes Benz goes beyond 10k. Many german cars go 20-30k on one oil change.

The manual states that there's a special break in oil. It's really nothing more than Honda factory oil mixed with an additive that makes it look extremely dark.

Then that would be "special"! Can you buy the break in oil at a parts store, NO. I don't think you can even order the breakin in oil.

[Yodums]

Originally Posted by ryker

Why would it not be right?

Again, not many people on these boards are using the recommended oil. Why would I follow the maintenance minder if I'm using an oil such as Amsoil XLF? Conversely, what about the people who are running a forced induction setup?

[shipo]

A few comments:

Originally Posted by ryker

The MM should use numerous computations and they are much more accurate than the ignorant 3k changes.

I'm not sure about the first bit, but completely agree with the latter. I was working at Mercedes-Benz when they were developing their OLM system for synthetic oil, in the end the engineers determined that there was just a single metric that needed to be measured to determine when the oil should be changed. The metric? The number of liters of fuel used since the last reset. FWIW, BMW determined the same thing and that is the only metric they use as well.

Originally Posted by ryker

The maintenance minder in my wifes Benz goes beyond 10k. Many german cars go 20-30k on one oil change.

Twenty to thirty thousand miles? Really? Which ones? My last BMW recommended the first oil change at about 13,000 miles, although that isn't too surprising as I picked it up in Germany and drove much of the first 1,200 miles at speeds north of 90 mph and speeds of north of 120 for the remainder of the trip. For the second oil change the car recommended it at 19,000 miles which wasn't a surprise either. Why? Because I spent most of that period driving back and forth between southern New Hampshire and Long Island.

Originally Posted by ryker

Then that would be "special"! Can you buy the break in oil at a parts store, NO. I don't think you can even order the breakin in oil.

True, you cannot buy break-in oil per-se; however, you can buy break-in additives (I've been using this stuff for decades).

http://www.iskycams.com/iskycategory...ategory_id=169

Originally Posted by Yodums

Again, not many people on these boards are using the recommended oil.

I've gotta disagree here. From my readings of the posts on this board, a significant majority of folks on this board go to their dealership for oil changes. I have to assume that most dealerships use the recommended oil.

Originally Posted by Yodums

Why would I follow the maintenance minder if I'm using an oil such as Amsoil XLF?

Agreed, same story if you use Mobil 1 or German Castrol. That said, for the duration of the warranty period I would absolutely adhere to the MM, regardless of how robust the oil is.

Originally Posted by Yodums

Conversely, what about the people who are running a forced induction setup?

Good question. Given how robust the Honda approved oils are proving to be (via UOAs posted on BITOG), it would be interesting to see if forced induction does actually shorten oil life. I do know that when BMW upgraded their flagship I6 engine from a normally aspirated 3.0 liter mill to a dual turbocharged 3.0 liter I6, they didn't change the oil spec, the oil capacity or anything else for that matter, and yet the OLM on the 335i and 535i still target a 15,000 mile OCI.

[ffswizzlestick]

It was asked about when fluids should be checked/changed. Assuming all things are as recommended, they should be doing it according to the MM. If someone isn't using recommended fluids, why does it matter if they change the fluids when honda recommends?

[shipo]

Originally Posted by ffswizzlestick

If someone isn't using recommended fluids, why does it matter if they change the fluids when honda recommends?

Speaking strictly for myself, my guess is that if someone is running synthetic oil with a 12,000 mile OCI in either Civic engine, and then said engine goes Tango Uniform (and there are a few accounts here and elsewhere of these engines failing early), Honda might deny warranty coverage because the MM hadn't been followed.

Thoughts?