Holy cow. I just hit 7,500 miles and FINALLY was due for my first service! The service reps told me that they've never seen another car go so long without service for the first appointment. I figured it was due to my driving habits - extremely conservative and around 55mph avg not exceeding 2k rpm. So, I'm curious. When was yours due?

7,500 does not seem like to much. I'm over 3,000 mi and have 60% oil life. Maybe hybrids don't need service as much or something. I'm not sure why they were so surprised.

My Service A / 15% Oil Life light came on just the other day at 7,250 miles. I'm at 7,520 and it's still at 15%. I've got about 100 miles left in my current tank, at which point I am going to do an oil change myself. I would hold off until about 5%, but I am going to be putting about 1,400 miles on the car next week so I want to run the clean oil through the engine on the long trip.

So, I'm right about where I wanted to be. I want to change the oil every 7,500 miles. It will keep me on a good maintenance schedule. The next oil change will be at 15,000, along with the cabin filter and any other services needed at 15,000. When doing oil changes at 10K miles, you only hit those even service intervals at 30K and 60K. I'd rather do all maintenance at once rather than staggered.

7500 sounds about right to me. Even my 1998 Camry only needed an oil change every 7500. A lot of modern cars are around 10,000.

I've only got 1500 miles on mine, so I have a ways to go.

It's probably because we all drive like grannies. If we all drove like a-holes, we'd be changing our oil closer to every 5000 miles.

http://greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/car/3686.html

http://greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/car/4955.html

I ran mine up to 5800 miles and only got the Oil indicator down to 40%.

The dealer included 3 free oil change but they have to be done before 6000 miles for the 1st one, 11,000 for the second one and 16,000 for the last one.

Just completed the first oil and filter change with 5% remaining on oil life indicator and 9,000 miles on odometer. The original oil looked fine, just slightly dirty.

I put in a high capacity filter and used Mobil 1 synthetic this time. Couldn't find 0-20 so I used 5-20, which is fine according to the owner's manual. No difference in MPG since the change.

I rotated the tires, too, but left the original air filter in place. I'll replace it later with a nice K & N filter if they make one to fit.

I'd like to hear everyone's opinions of synthetic vs. fossil oil and performance air filters vs. standard ones.

I'd like to hear a write-up (new thread) on the K&N, please.

http://greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/car/3686.html

http://greenhybrid.com/compare/mileage/car/4955.html

Can't remember when the 15% life came on but I changed the oil at 7820 miles.

Eric

Your driving habits ARE good, but the service intervals for newer cars are increased, pretty much across all manufacturers. Your dealer is either new to the business, or telling a little white lie (they all love to get you in more often = $$$ to them). These intervals are perfectly normal.
The HCH2 SHOULD go 7K miles or longer (even up to 10K) between oil changes. I had my oil changed for the first "A1" service when the meter ran down to 0% - that was just under 9K (I think it was). My second service (which included an oil change) was around 17K miles.

Steve

STOP terrorism - Drive a HYBRID

Vehicles:
350 miles a week ------------ 2006 HCH II, Magnetic Pearl, w/NAVI (born on May 25, 2006)
350 miles a month ---------- 2003 Mazda Tribute ES-V6
350 miles a year (for now) - 1986 Mercedes 560SL