Can anyone please explain to me the "Maintenance Minder".

I am used to servicing vehicles every X number of miles. However, in my owner's manual, I just don't see this. Does the maintenance minder tell me what needs servicing?

I guess I am suck in the dark ages, but if someone could shed some light, I would be appreciative.

I don't like maintenance minders. They can give you a false feeling of trust. Their nothing else than an odometer wich is doing a countdown.

The euroversion manual states first small service at 20k km.

Untill a car can do its one chemical analyses i'll trust a maintenance minder telling me that the oil life is still 40%.

It wil always depend on circumstances.

The maintenance minder should be far better than going by the odometer. The maintenance minder is based on actual engine revolutions, which is a better indicator of wear and tear/oil use than miles.

The Honda Maintenance Minder claims to be a lot more sophisticated than that:

What I'd like to know: Should we be following the maintenance minder, the "change your oil every 3 months or 3,000 miles" advice, the 7,500-mile service book guide, or what ... ? I drive in L.A. traffic and for past Hondas (three Accords, one Prelude) have changed the oil somewhere in the 3,750 range, in part just to have everything else looked over by the local garage guys I know.

But then again, I was told by the former PR head for Honda that every 7,500 miles was more than sufficient for my last Accord as the engines are designed to exceed that interval between oil changes, even in L.A. driving.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Honda has always had these reminder lights. There was one in my 78 Accord.

My HCHII will get its first change at 10K, which at the current rate is when the "minder" will mind me. The car will get a fresh fill of synthetic at that time and every 10K after that.

I run all my cars at 10K oil change intervals, and I get the oil analyzed every 20K. I have never had an engine failure or lubrication related problems with any of my cars.

This Honda replaced an Audi Allroad 2.7 bi-turbo Avant. It had 120,000 miles on the clock, and it still tested within initial production tolerances for compression, wheel horsepower, etc. This car always went 10K between changes and was always on synthetic oil except for the factory fill. In many ways it is a faster car now that it is fully broken-in, and the engine will probably be the very last thing to have problems in that car.

That car had a "Service in 2000 Miles" display much like the Maintenance Minder.

Given all that, I do not expect any issue with this change interval on the Civic.

The idea of 3,000 mile oil changes belongs with those of breaker points and innertubes.

In the older Hondas, the maintenance required light was merely a timer that went off every 7500 miles (or 10k in the newer 4-cyls) to notify the owner that they had reached the absolute maximum interval between a scheduled service.

With the maintenance minder, the concept is similar...but the actual interval is determined by a computer algorithm that takes into account various factors: engine rpms, oil temps, soak times, etc, hence every driver will have a different service interval as no two drivers have completely identical driving profiles.

Depending on the exact conditions, the Maintenance Minder can call for a service in as little as 3k miles or as high as 10k miles.

But again, the Maintenance Minder calculates the optimum interval (as Honda says) based upon your conditions, but just remember that it is your maximum interval...so conservative/recreational mechanics take note...