I bought HCH in January and so this is the first warm weather that my OPEC-Slayer has had to bask in. I have about a 30 minute commute to work. When I get home, I turn off the engine and there is still a fan running. Or something that sounds like a fan. Sometimes it will go for awhile before shutting off. Am I stupid? What is that? Granted, I don't have a very expansive knowledge of vehicles, but I hope I'm not crazy or something isn't wrong.

Second question – I got my oil changed at the dealer...it took nearly 2 hours! I was the only one there, mind you. No kidding. Finally the woman says "We didn't know it was a hybrid and had problems with the oil filter." First, what could possibly be different with chaning the oil on HCH and a normal civic? Second, I wonder what kind of oil they put into it. I don't know if I like my dealership people...they kind of made me feel guilty for asking these sorts of questions, but I am paying $20 for an oil change, ya know?

This is my first REAL car, so I want to take good care of it. My last one was a '95 Mercury Crap Mobile, so I didn't care too much.

 

A lot of cars have had electric fans that opperated after you shut off the engine. Its normal.

Maybe they used an oil filter for a regular civic and it was different from the hybrid oil filter. The tech probably fiddled with it for an hour or so before someone told him he had the wrong one.

 

I kinda got mad about the oil thing. I usually don't get upset about waiting, but when you can only get it done during work hours and your lunch break is only so long, ya know? I think I'm just going to start doing it myself.

 

My oil changes are free but still takes them about 1.5hrs to do.

HCH has a special panel underneath to cut wind resistance that has to be removed.
Shouldn't be much of an obsticle while up on the rack though.

It takes lighter oil than normal, 0-20 viscosity.

 

$20? I pay about $40 in Central Florida for hybrid oil changes at the dealer. Did they mess up and charge you the "regular" price?

I'm not crazy, right? Your dealers (if that's how you get your oil changed) charge more for the hybrid oil change, dont' they...?

 

Oil changes @ my dealership are 40 (I'm pretty sure)

My fan stays on as well after I shut the car off, so I think that's normal.

 

I've got you all beat. My last stealership oil change was ~$23 not including oil (since I brought my own synthetic oil), took THREE hours and was followed up by a return trip to he dealer when I realized that I had gone there with 5 quarts of oil and there were zero quarts in the cardboard box in my car when I got home. Well, I checked the oil level and it was substantially overfilled.

The Civic HX only holds about 3.3 quarts of oil in the first place, so either they poured in all 5 quarts of my own $5/quart synthetic oil, or they poured in at least 4 and kept a quart for themselves. Either way, they then had to drain it into a catch pan and properly refill it to the correct level. So.. they basically wasted quite a lot of my time, charged me $23 anyway, and wasted about $7.50 of my oil with their screwup.

Well, that was the end of that. After 8 years of using the stealership for my oil changes I decided to do my last one on my own. Other than the fact I didn't have the right kind of oil filter wrench to get the filter off (the dealer likes to jam them on there with 900 ft-lbs of torque or something) it was actually pretty easy and only took me maybe an hour or so and cost me $7.50 for the filter and drain plug washer. Oil would have been the same price either way, so I don't count that, but on the other hand, by doing it myself I only put in the 3.3 quarts that it needed rather than the 4 or whatever the dealer normally does.

Actually I have no idea what they normally did with my remainder oil. Up until I did my own oil change and actually looked up the oil capacity in the manual I had always figured the Civic took 4 quarts because normally they take 4 quarts out of the case that I go into the dealer with. All these years it would seem that they were either throwing away at least 0.5 quart of my oil or keeping it for themselves. Well at any rate, as much as I am not a super huge fan of working on cars myself, this was one area where it's pretty satsifying to do it yourself and know that you did it right and saved a couple bucks in the mean time.

 

Speaking of oil changes, the last time I had mine changed, they backed another car into mine between the driver-side door and the front fender. A simple oil changed turned into them keeping my car for a week to replace the fender and door. To add insult to injury, they gave me an Element to drive. A box on wheels.

 

I picked up some of the sealing rings for the drain plug to do my oil change in a couple hundred miles. (tip: you're not supposed to reuse them).

Dealer told me to just pop off the sheild with a screwdriver. But he did say that when you change the oil, fill up the filter before screwing it on. He said that the tight tolerances of the HCH will sense an empty filter as a problem and some check light on the dash will come on rendering your 30 min home oil change a major pain in the butt!

 

Haha, I've had my HCH for a few weeks now and just started noticing the fan thing. I was about to post the same question. I've waited it out a couple of minutes and it was still on, not sure how long it takes for it to turn off usually. I have found that starting the car again then shutting it right off kills then fan. That doesn't really make sense and has led me to think that something isn't right.