I have an '06. I've been getting my oil changed at dealer every 5k. I now have 40k highway miles on car. I've never seen any maintenance reminder messages to date. At last oil change, I asked that my air filter be checked. They told me that maintenance minder would indicate need for change. I said to check filter anyway (it's original). Allegedly, the filter is ok. I was going to check it myself, but someone told me there was a sensor in there that u might accidentally unhook. I'm concerned that my maintenance minder isn't working. Anyone else have this many miles without service codes?

 

Push the far-left button on your dash a few times.

The display will toggle through a few displays, not sure of the order or if I forgot one but . . .

Trip A
Trip B
Temperature
Percentage of oil life remaining.
Odometer

That is your car's "maintenance minder" for oil.
I believe it takes into account not only miles driven but how hard you were on the engine, to calculate when to change oil.

 

I think there is a time component too because I do not drive hard by any stretch of the imagination and my car reached 15% at 7000 miles isntead of the 10,000 that many members here are reporting. It took us 9 months to hit that 7,000 miles though which is longer than average.

 

I think it's cool they have this feature.

Very smart.

 

I agree, its a very good feature. I think alot of the car company's will follow suite. Honda normally leads the way?

 

Many luxury cars have had this for a while (I think). My mom's mercedes has a countdown in miles to when she needs to see the dealer next for service A/B. Or does that just go by the recommended distance traveled between visits to the dealer and not actual oil use?

 

Most oil life monitors do more than measure intervals, though they do track that. They can track total engine revolutions, percentage of time at high revs, average engine and oil temp, and of course distance driven. For the monitor to have any accurate sense of oil condition, it has to know what kinds of loads the engine has seen, hence this and other info.

Even inexpensive cars have had this since the mid-90s -- Chryslers and Pontiacs, for instance.

Honda's the first car I've ever driven, though, that's got a nominal 10,000-mile interval. Sweet! (If strange.)

--doug

 

2005 BMW 5 series - 15,000 miles between oil changes
2002 Porsche Boxster - 12 or 15,000 miles between oil changes

Miles noted for the BMW are an estimate since it has a maintenance minder like the Honda. It uses 8 or 9 quarts of synthetic oil.

There have to be idiot maintenance minders and smart ones. We have a 96 civic with an oil change light - I would be surprised if that incorporated too much data - I am guessing it is just miles.

I don't know where the credit belongs but BMW has had smart maintenance minders for a while. The 5 series had countdowns for about 8 items that you could see as the owner (including brake pads) - strangely enough the dealer had countdowns that were more accurate and slightly different.

Does the HCH-II have multiple minders - like for the air filter. I thought it was just oil changes since that is all we see. Or is it like the BMW that had secret monitors for the dealer only???

 

I think it just has the oil change and it tells you which services you need when you need them. I think that those services are just based on miles tho. As for secret monitors... nobody knows. They're secret, after all.

 

If you reset the Maintenance Minder BEFORE it reaches the "Service Due Soon" message appears @ 15% Oil Life Remaining, you must pay attention to the display when the system is reset.

For instance, if you performed your oil change @ 30% remaining, when you go and reset the system, any other services that need to be performed (i.e. subcode 2, etc), it will be displayed at that time. If you do not pay attention to what codes are displayed when you reset the system, upon resetting the system, the computer assumes that you have already performed those services.

At 40K, it's likely that you the codes for ATF, engine air filter, and cabin air filter has already come up. I'd just get those services performed to play it safe...