When is the first oil change "break-in period" a call to my dealers said check the oil percent. Does anyone have any comments on this, I have always changed the oil after the breaking period, I was told no rapid acceleration, no cruise control, or hard braking and keep it at 65 for the first 500 miles. This to me is then the breaking period.

change the oil when it hits 15% or below, so that would be roughly at 7500 to 9000 miles depending on how you drive. Dont accelerate too fast or brake too hard for the first 600 miles. You can go as fast as you want though, but probably not much faster than 85. You dont want to keep your rpms too high. Using the cruise control should be fine if you are driving in areas that have slightly rolling hills.

Btw, you can change the oild at 10 and 5% as well. No point changing it sooner as you waste oil and money.

Thanks Nark!

Don't do a break in oil change. Legend has it that the initial oil contains extra "stuff" to help condition the engine. Or did I dream that?

Anyway, years ago I was in your shoes and talked out of it. Search around here and I'm sure you will find discussion.

Ian

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

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

It's not surprising that there is a range of opinions regarding the merit of changing the oil in a new car at a fairly low mileage. This stems from years ago when engine manufacturing was a great deal less precise than it is today. The quality of the oils back then was also much lower than modern products. The thinking was that you needed to 'flush' out metal particles remaining from the original machining and wearing-in of the rings and bearings.

Over the years I have noticed how much longer it takes for motor oil to change color. It's now common to drain oil that still hasn't turned black. To me this shows how much cleaner modern engines stay because of their fuel injection and other pollution reducing features.

So, even though I am eager to change the oil in my own HCH II to synthetic, I'm going to be patient and rely on the oil life indicator, or Honda's recommendation of annual changes, if my mileage doesn't reach the <15% indicator sooner.

By the way, I'm consistently getting tanks around 48 mpg and have had a few shorter trips closer to 60 mpg. I also quite like how the Hybrid moves away from a stop at such low revs due to the IMA "boost".

Cheers,

Roger

Here are the results of Oil tests that I have had done on my HCHII since new. Notice that the first oil fill had quite a lot of material in it including a high amount of silicon left over from the engine block casting process. It is best to let the oil go to 0% or more on the maintenance minder to get as much of the stuff washed out from the manufacturing process as possible. As you can see from the report, the numbers came down to within specifications by the 3rd oil change. Settling on 10K intervals causes no harm to the engine.

These are great responses, the engineer in me loves the analysis of the oil changes!!!!