Good lord does this freak out my wife when it pops up. I wonder if it was designed with that in mind. Our 2014 Accord is first car to have this and and soon as that oil life indicator warning pops up it is all I hear about - "when are you getting the oil changed? Today maybe" "Have you mad an appointment yet"?

I really wish there was a way to disable it. I explained it to her it is no big deal and it just means they recommend an oil change at zero. Light comes on around 6000 miles and it is synthetic oil. I told her I am POSITIVE it could go at least a couple thousand more miles easily. But NOOOOOOOOOOO, the guy at Honda told her it should be changed when it is at 30%.

So we are having this discussion the other day because my daughter drove neighbors car and her oil life was at ZERO!! OMG, the end of the world! So I pry into this further and my wife actually believed that the engine would seize at ZERO LOL. Where do they get these silly ideas?

Tell her she is free to take the car to the shop and have the oil changed.

Why do you have to be involved in the oil change at all? I wouldn't let my wife perform the oil change, but if all you're going to do it pay someone else her credit card swiping hand is a strong as yours.

My wife apparently thinks oil has an indefinite life. If I didn't keep track, she'd never change the oil in her car. But she will take it to the shop herself when I remind her.

I know several women who think their car/SUV motor oil never needs changing. Just add oil to the motor.

Exwife destroyed the motor in her Mitsu Galant after the "oil light" came on and stayed on for two days. Poor car was a wreck when she got rid of it.

Just be glad she doesn't ignore all the warnings like some do.

I had an old Toyota Camry, one of the kind of boxy ones, before they started being decent looking? When I finally sold that car, it had over 400,000 miles on it, and ran like a champ. The interior was falling apart, but that car ran well. I probably changed the oil 6 times when I had that car (I was the original owner-still not sure why I decided I needed to buy a boxy car).
I'm sure there was a certain amount of luck and good fortune involved, and I'm quite a bit more diligent with things like that these days, but I tend to be of the opinion that oil changes are worried about a bit too much a lot of times.
Yes, change your oil. Regularly is better, absolutely. But some folks (like my father-in-law for instance) oughta relax a bit about the frequency of doing it...

There. That's my piece.

You can dig through the menu on the console and reset the oil life (presumably after you've changed the oil yourself).

Simply reset the countdown at about 5,000 miles and let it run down again. I keep track on an app called Road Trip. I change at about 8,000 with full synthetic and a new filter. No worries here.

quote:

Honda told her it should be changed when it is at 30%

I'm confused Honda told her 30% = 0%??? What kind of math is that?

Here's simple solution. Reset oil change count down after she drives it for 1,000-1,500 miles, then 30% will equal zero, or closer to it at least.

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
Tell her she is free to take the car to the shop and have the oil changed.

Why do you have to be involved in the oil change at all? I wouldn't let my wife perform the oil change, but if all you're going to do it pay someone else her credit card swiping hand is a strong as yours.

My wife apparently thinks oil has an indefinite life. If I didn't keep track, she'd never change the oil in her car. But she will take it to the shop herself when I remind her.

I don't mind doing it as I am retired and she is still working plus she is a salesman's dream. The cabin and air filter would be changed a lot more often than need be if I did not take it in. I can change the cabin and air filter myself but they like to show it to people who come in for an oil change and that it is a little dirty even though it was changed less than a year ago.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Honda told her it should be changed when it is at 30%

I'm confused Honda told her 30% = 0%??? What kind of math is that?

Here's simple solution. Reset oil change count down after she drives it for 1,000-1,500 miles, then 30% will equal zero, or closer to it at least.

That equals more money for them with oil changed more frequently than needed and they seem to convince many it is better some how.

Thanks for the tip on resetting the counter as I may do that.

quote:

Originally posted by cparktd:
Just be glad she doesn't ignore all the warnings like some do.

Good point! Apparently the neighbor is like that.

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
I know several women who think their car/SUV motor oil never needs changing. Just add oil to the motor.

Exwife destroyed the motor in her Mitsu Galant after the "oil light" came on and stayed on for two days. Poor car was a wreck when she got rid of it.

Dang, sorry to hear that!

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:

quote:

Honda told her it should be changed when it is at 30%

I'm confused Honda told her 30% = 0%??? What kind of math is that?

It's like the wind chill factor.

quote:

Originally posted by grumpy1:

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
I know several women who think their car/SUV motor oil never needs changing. Just add oil to the motor.

Exwife destroyed the motor in her Mitsu Galant after the "oil light" came on and stayed on for two days. Poor car was a wreck when she got rid of it.

Dang, sorry to hear that!

Car salesmen loved her as she paid full price on every new car she bought. She was thrilled if she got "free car mats". Except when she bought the Galant, as I went along with her and saved her $2500.

She didn't know a buyer could negotiate car price with sales personnel.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
I'm confused Honda told her 30% = 0%??? What kind of math is that?

It's called dealership math.

Just trying to earn a buck.

How many unnecessary oil changes at every 3000 miles used to be done (and probably still are) by shops? Ch-ching!

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:

quote:

Originally posted by grumpy1:

quote:

Originally posted by GWbiker:
I know several women who think their car/SUV motor oil never needs changing. Just add oil to the motor.

Exwife destroyed the motor in her Mitsu Galant after the "oil light" came on and stayed on for two days. Poor car was a wreck when she got rid of it.

Dang, sorry to hear that!

Car salesmen loved her as she paid full price on every new car she bought. She was thrilled if she got "free car mats". Except when she bought the Galant, as I went along with her and saved her $2500.

She didn't know a buyer could negotiate car price with sales personnel.

My wife is the same way. When we went to pick up the 2014 Accord the salesman gave me the hard sell on paint and leather protection for $800. Wife really wanted it but I said NO. Then the finance guy gave me the hard sell on the extended warranty for $1800 but they quote the "monthly" price and again she wanted it but again I said NO and it would have been a total waste of money. She is a salesperson's dream but that is her nature because she believes and trusts most anyone.

quote:

Originally posted by mcrimm:
I change at about 8,000 with full synthetic and a new filter. No worries here.

That's what I do. Few hundred miles either way won't hurt it.

I have an e-mail I sent to myself which I reply to myself titled "maintenance" in which I track the date, mileage and work performed.

I follow the oil life indicator on my Cherokee, but that’s mainly because of the lifetime/unlimited mile warranty and the explicit warning in the owner’s manual to not run it past 0%. I do it myself around 5%, depending on my schedule, and it averages a little more than 9K between changes.

-Rob

Honestly I have never seen the light come on, on my car. Almost six years old, I only have 24k mi on it. I just change it 2x per year to get condensation out of it. So I'm on the 2,000 mile plan. Between car washes and oil changes it's damn expensive to drive per mile.

My Mustang has one of those indicators. Never bothered me much; when I tuned the car at ~25k miles, it stopped working. It's been at 100% without any interaction from me for the past 4 years.

I change my oil every 3-4 months, though I'm overdue this cycle. By my estimate, I'm probably 4-5,000 miles overdue here.