>Civic owner's manual says to follow the computer's oil change calculation
>Making me nervous because I'm at about 5k miles and it still says 60% of oil life remaining
>I always get nervous and change the oil around 5k
Should I just change my oil Veeky Forums or should I live a little and go until the computer gets down to 10%?
The oil life % is gauged off the odometer and not the life of the fuel. Doesn't hwve sensors in the oil tank measuring the life left of it. If you are using synthetic then go up to 7k. What is the OIC invthe manual?
oil change life monitor doohickeys are an algorithm based off heat cycles the engine (and in turn the oil) is exposed to, also odometer but to a lesser degree.
You could do like 2000 miles straight without letting the engine cool down (only stopping for gas) and it wont drop a significant amount.
It's ridiculous, the most the manual says is
"Change the oil and filter in accordance with the maintenance message on the
information display*/multi-information display" I'd feel a lot more comfortable if they'd give me an actual mileage number for a mandatory change
>You could do like 2000 miles straight without letting the engine cool down (only stopping for gas) and it wont drop a significant amount.
How bad would that be for the engine?
what really "wears" oil is heat cycles going from ambient temp (70F) to operating temp (212F+).
Keeping oil at operating temp is great actually, Keeps engines and oil happy.
On BITOG most used oil reports, for most engines, say that 7500 miles is a good time to change. I know on my car with the way I drive it will let me go to 11,000 miles before it hits 0% but I dont do that. 7500 miles, 8500 if I get lazy.
I would like to see some car show do a test and see how long they can drive a new car without changing the oil before the engine explodes or something
I need my own TV show to test this sort of stuff.
Not him, but I own a 8th Gen civic. It reaches "15%" oil life (recommended change) at around 8000 km. I just go off that. I use synthetic as well, but even on conventional it was the same.
Back in like 2002 I knew a girl who bought a new honda and never changed the oil. Engine siezed. Not sure exactly how many miles it had buy I think between 10k and 15k.
I change my oil every 4k miles I don't care what the manufacturer says. By 4k miles the oil looks dirty.
>BITOG
I'm always sort of surprised by the specialty forums out there, but a forum dedicated to oil is still somewhat shocking.
Car throttle did that with an old Mercedes. Look it up on YouTube
It ran for a good little bit
Hahaha
God, that's even worse than the guy I know who bought a used Audi TT from a terrible client of ours and didn't care that the check engine light was on. Two weeks later smoke was coming out of the car and the engine was overheated after a 45 minute drive. He poured a bunch of coolant into the engine (way past the fill line) and then decided to drive it more. This further damaged the car. The work to fix it cost thousands and he ended up having to sell the car.
>the oil looks dirty.
Yeah yeah.
My work trucks are towing a trailer every mile they drive, lots of short trips, lots of dirt roads etc. I also drive them hard.
>4k miles.
>The oil looks dirty.
Define dirty.
I did a tire repair on a 2015 Savana 2500 that was 30000 km over the due sticker. And the sad thing is the sticker was only from 14 000 km. Ran fine despite having literally nothing on the dipstick
Like tar
my dad laughed at me when I said my car needed oil changes every 5-8k miles. He said his land cruiser and rav 4 get oilchanges once every two years or every 40k miles.
neither of them have had any reliability problems.
I have a 2003 tundra that says on the oil cap to use 5w30. Last time oil was changed (just got the truck) they used 0w20. Is that too thin? I know newer tundras call for 0w20 but im not sure about these.
Good god
Personally I'd never follow hondas oil life. 5000 km conv 7500 km syn.
I wouldn't recommend going below 15 % oil life. As this is usually around 6000 km if using conv. oil and the 1.8 L engines usually will burn about 0.5 l after 6000 km in high mileage civics.
Yes the computer knows the km and the engine temp etc. But it can't tell you if it's oxidized, waxy, or just dirty from improper maintenance. I see these poor little cars coming in 2000 over the sticker and the dipstick is bone dry because the tire monkeys only put in the bare minimum to cut costs
I'd scream bloody murder and get them to buy you a new engine.