The manual (page 557) clearly says to change oil when the oil indicator reads 15%. I'm at 4,100 miles on my Insight and the oil indicator reads 70% remaining. If that continues, it will be well over 10,000 miles before my first oil change. I'm assuming at the factory they did not use synthetic oil. I'm wondering if this longer cycle is because the internal combustion engine mainly is used to recharge the battery.
Why would you assume that the factory not use synthetic? The 0w-20 oil specified by Honda to use for these vehicles are only found full synthetic or synthetic blend. No such thing as conventional 0w-20 oil.
On my 2014 Accord, I get the maintenance minder at about 6500 miles or so (depending on driving habits and conditions).
It would be safe to assume, that because the ICE on the Insight runs about 2/3 the amount of time as a non-hybrid (my observation), that 10,000 miles is not out of the question.
I’m over 6000 miles now and it says I’m at 50% life. I’m leaving on 4500 to 5000 road trip in two weeks, so I’ll probably get it changed before we leave. Otherwise I planned on going until I reached 15% remaining life.
It doesn't just depend on miles driven. I was in my younger years a licensed mechanic. Guidelines for oil changes have changed dramatically since those days. However, in my case I do a lot of short trips as a senior and the car really doesn't get to stay at operating temperature very long. Given the climate I drive in (Canadian winters) excess moisture can form in the engine and will not be removed and that can lead to shorter engine life. For that reason, I plan to change oil at the end of the winter season even if I haven't reached the manufacturer's recommended mileage. I have had my insight for 8 months and only accumulated 4000 kms. That is 2,485 miles. My maintenance guide on the car tells me I have 40% life left on the oil so I think it is doing a pretty decent job of analyzing my driving habits. Regardless though of what it tells me I will be changing oil by the end of April. I will be interested to see how the onboard oil guide reacts to summer months where the engine is not working to provide cabin heat and comes to operating temperature much quicker.
Years ago, on regular ICE cars, Consumer Reports tracked taxicabs in Detroit and found that there was problem not changing oil for 80-100,000 miles! I may be misremembering!
So take with a grain of salt, but it's definitely been established that the recommended oil changes for decades were far more aggressive than need be (source of dealer profit?) and that even when changes every 3,000 miles were being advised, 7-10,000 was fine.
Having said all that, one questions why, with the Insight, and its Mainetnenace Minder, some dealers still slap a vinyl sticker with 3,500 mile oil change reminder on the windshield!! 😎 🙉
Having said all that, one questions why, with the Insight, and its Mainetnenace Minder, some dealers still slap a vinyl sticker with 3,500 mile oil change reminder on the windshield!!
Ha, I'm guessing the cheap window sticker is worth a shot a doubling oil service revenue if/when the driver returns twice (3.5k x 2) rather than once (7.0k)...
Maintenance minder messages will start showing up on the dashboard when engine oil life is <15%, to let you know maintenance is recommended. It's totally your option to service earlier, if warranted by preference or conditions as Misterb mentions in current thread. maynrd150 also offers helpful perspective on service approach in the 'maintenance' and 'crush washer' threads.
My driving is considered severe condition due to short trips and stop/go traffic. Will most likely do my first oil change before 10,000 miles. Planning on replacing it with Honda ultimate full synthetic oil from the dealership.
This is my first brand new car and because of the pandemic and in mostly lock down, I have not driven my car very much. Bought my car this past December and only have 1046 miles now. And most of that was back from March. I drove my car recently and the Reminder A maintenance showed up with 15% oil life.
Should I get the oil change done soon and ask to use synthetic oil only?
Since I probably won’t be doing a lot of driving unless I am supposed to every 2 weeks to not destroy my car. Which please advise me on that too.
This is my first brand new car and because of the pandemic and in mostly lock down, I have not driven my car very much. Bought my car this past December and only have 1046 miles now. And most of that was back from March. I drove my car recently and the Reminder A maintenance showed up with 15% oil life.
Greetings, fellow low-mileage driver. I had similar experience, where the oil life changed significantly between drives. For people that drive less than ~10k miles per year, the Maintenance Minder seems to trigger on a time basis (1 year between oil changes) rather than mileage. This practice is the same as the prior 'standard' recommendation to change your oil at least once annually, due to oil oxidizing/aging and reducing its lubrication effectiveness. Net, I've been following the Maintenance Minder recommendation and/or changing the oil at least annually and would suggest same.
Should I get the oil change done soon and ask to use synthetic oil only?
I've gone up to 1 month / 4 weeks between drives. Honda's recommendation is that the Insight be run for 30 minutes at least once every 3 months, but I've not wanted to push it that long. The risk/need for this interval is to maintain HV battery charge, which can deplete over time even when not driven... kind of like your cell phone battery when on standby When it's been a while since last drive, I'll intentionally take a longer drive and/or include a highway driving stretch to give everything a workout.
The oil change interval from Honda says 3000 - 5000 miles for conventional oil and 7500 - 10000 miles for synthetic oil. Personally, I'll go with every 7500 miles.
That mileage-based interval information is for older Honda's without Maintenance Minders... and also for conventional engines which run all the time while car is on (versus ~50% less ICE run time in a hybrid). Maintenance Minder supersedes those recommendations, but it's always an option to err on the conservative side and perform extra maintenance before it's triggered and your dealer service advisor certainly won't object.
For 'low mileage' drivers (<10k/yr), the Maintenance Minder oil life reminder appears after ~1 year. For 'high mileage' drivers (10k+/yr) the Maintenance Minder oil life seems to trigger around 10-12k miles.
Last time my maintenance minder went off was around 10k miles around 15%. I went ahead and did that service.
I'm now at 25k miles and my maintenance minder indicates 50% for the A1,2 service.
Took my car into the honda dealership today to check on an annoying rattle and the service guy was freaking out that my car was WAAAYY over due on service. They quoted me on a lot of stuff including transmission flush for grand total of $499 to get the service done. I told them that my maintenance minder still said I was at 50% and he told me not to go off that. I went ahead and agreed on the service. Did I get bent over?
So confused that some will say to go off the maintenance minder and some will say to go off the mileage. Which is it? lol
15k for second service interval does seem long compared to the 10-12k/yr average range that the Maintenance Minder triggers for the Insight... especially if your first service interval was 10k and/or you've been driving the same way (or driving less, given the pandemic). If I were in your position, I think I'd proceed with oil change in this case despite the Maintenance Minder. Also an 'easy' way to decide is if it's been a year since your last oil change.
If the MM accidentally/inadvertently got reset, maybe your dealer can use their Diagnostics Computer to "Force Activation" and show what is really needed.
Regarding transmission fluid, it was ~95k when high-mileage/highway driver @onthefly1050 received notice that transmission fluid change was needed. And the Owners Manual (OM19 pg 559) lists 47.5k/3yrs as the trigger if you drive in "severe" mountainous conditions at low speeds. Both of these thresholds are much higher than where you are now, so it seems premature... even if you were driving in severe conditions The Insight has an "eCVT" rather than the CVT in conventional cars; it works differently and Insight car only carries 2.3 qt total (versus 3.7 qt in the automatic and 2.0 qt in the manual GenX Civics).
I've been getting 10K miles between changes. The maintenance light came on yesterday with only 4500 miles on the car since the last change in early March. It had been ten months. I had been doing 20K+ a year pre-covid. 4.5K in ten months is nothing!
This goes to show there is a definite calculation using mileage and time for the maintenance minder notifications. Just finished the DIY change in about 20 minutes.
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