Honda Warranty/Do It Yourself Maintinence
 

Hello all,

I purchased by Mag Pearl '06 HCH-II back in early August. The time is approaching for the A-1 service interval (don't worry, I'm waiting for the car to tell me, its smarter than I am, I'm thinking of naming it K.I.T.T.).

My question is this...I purchased an extended warranty (100,000 Miles/5 yr.) from Honda. The information I received expresses that I should keep records and recipts of the maintinence performed. However, I want to do it myself, as I am quite used to. Will this interfere with my warranty if I should ever need to use it? I would rather use Mobil 1 and not pay the dealer price, and, I quite like doing the work myself. Any info would be helpful.

I'm loving the car. I'm getting around 45 MPG on average, still waiting for that post break in boost everyone keeps talking about. Between the MPG of the hybrid, and being in a carpool, I feel so much better about my good stewardship of our earths resources. I hope others feel this same satisfaction!

Joe

Re: Honda Warranty/Do It Yourself Maintinence
 

Keep receipts for the oil and filters (oil & air) that you replace and you'll be fine. In addition to that, I made an "official-looking" invoice that mirrors the dealership for my files.

In the trust-but-verify category, I decided to have an oil analysis done on my factory fill oil, and second oil change - both of which were run to 10,000 miles on my '05 non-hybrid/non-OLM civic coupe. I've also kept both oil filters (which were cut open to see what sort of debris might be in the filter media) as further proof of maintenance should the need arise :P

If you're interested you can read the results of the oil analysis here:

factory fill - http://theoildrop.server101.com/foru...rue#Post250699

10-20k oil change - http://theoildrop.server101.com/foru...rue#Post732290

Re: Honda Warranty/Do It Yourself Maintinence
 

Wow! There's an awful lot of info in those two threads lindermant linked, and even more if you care to surf that site further.

IMHO, if you had a claim on the engine in 100k (highly unlikely, but not impossible I guess), and did some or all of your service yourself, all you would need is a log of the work you completed along with reciepts for corresponding oil and filter purchases. Again IMHO, if you have a problem with the A/C for example, they could not ask you to document your oil change intervals.

I hit 7700 miles today and still reading 30% oil life. I plan to take it to 10,000 miles before servicing my vehicle, as long as it still reads 5% or higher. I will let the dealer do the service though. $35 including 0w20 is fine by me. I think it would cost me close to that for just the oil and filter...

Re: Honda Warranty/Do It Yourself Maintinence
 

I'm just going to write everything in the included maintenance log, and staple the oil filter UPC+recept in there. Since I buy cases of oil instead of individual quarts, that means I'll end up with fewer receipts than oil changes, so the filter stuff should be plenty.

Re: Honda Warranty/Do It Yourself Maintinence
 

As most have certainly pointed out: please keep all receipts and invoices- especially for maintanance work performed outside a Honda dealership. Now, will a third party maintenance routine interfere with your warranty? In most cases it is not likely to be a problem.

However, be advised that a higher level of scrutiny is applied to customers that perform the maintenance outside the dealerships. In fact, there is less good will offered by Honda when high priced items such as IMA components and other special order components fail within the warranty period!! There are many cases where Honda will pick up the tab (part or even full) for specialty items that fail outside the warranty period if the owner maintained a good service history with a dealership.

Honda can easily justify this policy (as they have for the last 16 years) because they state their maintenance visits encompass much more than a simple oil change. Many dealerships will openly disclose the number of inspection checkpoints that many DIY owners and third party mechanics either ignore or are simply not able to perform competently.

A Honda service person is expected to inspect many of the checklist items and recommend/apply corrective action when necessary- all for the purpose of avoiding a fatal or non-remedial failure. This is a normal routine for each oil change. As a simple and very common example: Leaking struts.

So my advice is simple and to the point: Because modern cars (especially hybrids) are no longer easily and comprehensively maintained by a DIY owner - it makes very little long term economic sense to do it. As they continue to advance in complexity and integration it becomes more and more so.

While I understand the basic and subjetive economics of changing one's oil (include assertion of manhood too?), please also consider what you may giving up in an attempt to save a few hundred dollars over the life of the vehicle.

Cheers


MSantos