Oil Life 50% at 1500 Miles

[gtman]

At 300 miles total on the car it's still at 100%. It's either not working or I drive like an old man.

Nah, you're fine. The MM drops in 10% increments so the next number you see will be 90%.

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[novadrive]

Just broke 1k Miles and I'm at 90%. Driving highway and city

 

[kibz]

I'm at 7k with 70% oil life(though it's been 70% for almost 2 months). I read people say to wait til it drops to 15-20% before changing even if mileage is a little higher(this will be my first). I wonder if it is ideal to wait that long given the miles I've driven. I drive 60/40 hwy/city. Any thoughts?

 

[gtman]

Still at 70% after 7,000 miles sounds like a MM malfunction.

 

[Snidely]

I'm at 90% at 1300 miles so far

 

[PhilF]

I changed out the factory fill & filter at 5,000 miles, the MM was at 40%. Used Mobil1 0W-20 EP and a Mobil1 M110A filter. Pretty much immediately, took a 1,200 mile road trip, all highway, and now have 7,400 miles on the car (2,400 mi on the new oil) MM is at 80%. This seems reasonable. The car was new in December. Just as an aside, the trip was from Harrisburg to Indianapolis, PA Turnpike & I70 some construction delays, incredible traffic jam in Indianapolis at rush hour. Rained the entire trip, out & back, I truly believe Indiana invented potholes. Ran cruise control, mostly 68-70 when possible, climate control on auto entire trip. Overall mpg (calculated) for the entire trip was 43.6.
The MM is, I guess, a decent guide, however I'm more comfortable with 5k service intervals including tire rotation, I'd consider going 7,500 under ideal conditions, but that's the limit of my oil comfort zone. My UOA from the 5k change was fairly normal according to Blackstone Labs, the 10k should be more Informative. Oil dilution was 1%.

 

[REBELXSi]

Still at 70% after 7,000 miles sounds like a MM malfunction.

I'd change that out asap. My oil was very very dark at 7500mi.

 

[DRuby]

I'm at 7k with 70% oil life(though it's been 70% for almost 2 months). I read people say to wait til it drops to 15-20% before changing even if mileage is a little higher(this will be my first). I wonder if it is ideal to wait that long given the miles I've driven. I drive 60/40 hwy/city. Any thoughts?

I agree with gtman's opinion. 7K is a lot of miles at that % oil life.

 

[TPA_CivicSi]

I'm just a bit over 5K miles, and MM is at 40%. I was going to wait until 30%, but now I'm thinking about going back to the dealer this weekend for my one free oil change.

 

[Design]

just change your oil every 5k miles regardless of what that shit says, and youll be fine.

Times have changed lol. We now have TCDI and fuel dilution to worry about.

MM will accelerate its interval based on a host of factors related to number of cold startups, miles driven, throttle position, ambient temps, etc. We've seen members needing to change their oil as early as every 2.6K.

OP - we're still trying to determine if the MM does a time-based calculation on oil life (it does for the brake fluid). If so, your readout seems perfectly normal. If not, we have seen readouts that low from owners that do a lot of low mileage trips in cold climates (a perfect recipe for increased fuel dilution).

 

[jason510]

There's a few other threads about the MM and I've read a few when I had my '14 Accord. One thing that I noticed is that it's not linear. I think there's a lot of factors that go into what % you see or don't see. For instance, ambient temperature, how hard you drive the car, city vs. highway, etc. are examples that come to mind.

I do think that the MM is there for a reason so the idea of changing every 5K (with the expletives) could be okay, but I don't remember the last time I saw somebody say the MM told them to change it at 5K. Like I've said before, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the engineers that designed the car know a tad more about Honda engines than somebody who's not a designer.

 

[Tags]

This thread made me check for the first time. 3200 miles, 90%.

 

[gtman]

This thread made me check for the first time. 3200 miles, 90%.

That's just nuts. My MM usually is down to about 40% at 3200 miles. Do you just coast all the way downhill? Yeah, I'm tuned and I live in a congested area with tons of stop and go, but still.

Sometimes with these really hard to understand high mileage MM numbers, I wonder if people are accidentally resetting it.

I mean, you're on pace for 20,000 plus miles between oil changes. Something's not right.

 

[MattyNice]

My oil seems to get dark almost immediately. I assume it’s from the heat of the turbo. Anyway, like I said earlier, with the well known fuel dilution issues, I think 5k intervals is best. The engineers didn’t plan for fuel dilution. To each his own though.

 

[Design]

Actually, the engineers do. The MM ticks away 2-3x as fast under shorter trips and frequent cold starts. Longer trips and prolonged operation under lean burn (hwy cruising) extend the intervals a bit longer. And all of our available readouts confirm that the MM operates a tad on the conservative side:

https://www.civicx.com/threads/oil-analysis-database.21607/#post-364703


There's nothing wrong with changing out early. But as several members have proved, 5K may not always be soon enough.

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