In the HCH 05 manual it said to change your oil every 10,000 miles or 12 months under normal driving conditions. Or 5,000 miles or 6 months for severe driving conditions. Without hesitation I was told I drive in severe conditions living in Honolulu by the salesman. So I was wonder where in the world would be normal driving conditions to allow for the 10,000 mile/1 year oil change?
What up sets me more is when I borught my car in at the Honda dealership for my 1st oil change 6 months after buying it, they told me to change it every 3750 miles or 3 months. When I told them I drove the hybrid and the above conditions they say that what they recommend, then told me it's okay if I bring it in a little over. Which tells me there kind of full of it. I wish I could bring it 10K or 1 year later. So where is this place - normal?

 

I spent a couple of years on Honolulu as a young Marine back in the day. I drove a car there, too. I find it difficult to imagine that that qualifies as 'severe' driving unless you were running a shuttle service over the Pali Highway multiple times a day with a full complement of passengers!
Your Honda dealership is (IMHO) deceiving you so they can make more money. I live in Southern California now, and drive a new '06 HCHII, and I still plan on changing the oil every 10k miles. That's my advice to you.

Hope this helps,

Don

 

Its not where you live, it's how you drive. If you drive mostly at highway speeds, on flat terrain, you cause little wear and tear on the car. If you drive in the city, with a lot of stop and go traffic, those are severe conditions. If you drive short distances so that a lot of your driving is on a cold engine, those are severe conditions. If you drive up and down steep hills, those are severe conditions.

Unfortunately no one quantifies the conditions - how much stop and go is a lot, for example - so that we can accurately classify our conditions. It's probably deliberate because it leaves room for the manufacturer to blame us if we don't treat our driving pattern as "severe", and the ambiguity encourages us to service the car more often than necessary.

 

I think the mechanics follow the old school of every 3 months or 3K miles. At least, that's what they kept putting on the reminder stickers when I used to have them service my Escape! I just take down that reminder. I follow the owner's manual recommended 6 months or 5K miles.

The 3K, or in Honda's case the 3,750 interval is probably due to generating business. The owner's manual states what's considered severe. And it even goes on to say, driving during some of those situations on occasion doesn't mean you have severe conditions. Only if MOST trips fall into those situations.

Personally, I'm following a 5K interval with my Accord Hybrid.

 

Actually, I don't think your dealer is bilking you. Consider that most dealers still stick to 3mo/3k. If he were trying to bilk you they wouldn't even be using the book oil change schedule, they would be going back to 3mo/3k. My local Toyota dealer looks at me funny when I tell him that the Prius service manual states 6mo/5k. Not much he can do about it. I hope that other Prius owners they deal with stick with the book rather than just go along with what they tell them. But their head service writer is pretty pushy and does a good soft sell. I wonder why he isn't selling cars?

But severe service is really pretty much any driving which isn't test track, full warm-up, long distance driving in controlled ambient temperature conditions with very pure air. If manufacturers were smart, they would just state, "this is when the oil needs to be changed, do it then and all will be well."

But, if you plan on sticking to a normal service schedule rather than severe service, definitely use full synthetic oil. It resists breakdown better than regular oil and it has superior detergents and soot holding ability than regular oil. It is a whole lot less likely to develop sludge also.

 

We've beat this one to death several times over and quite a few people are passionate about the 3,000 mile interval but they haven't seemed to take into account the hybrid runs sooooo much cleaner than their '61 Galaxie grandpa used to drive.

I still stand by changing "my" hybrid's oil every 7,500 to 8,000 miles running full synthetic (Mobil 1 0-20W). The reasoning being I feel my situation is a mixture of severe and normal driving. Actually a few weeks ago I posted Honda's definition of Severe duty.

In my old '63 Corvette it's every 3,000 miles or 5 years, whichever comes first - Usually every 5 years.

 

Heeey! It's a '59!

 

Not to beat a dead horse, but I disagree. I think many more of us qualify for the "normal" conditions than service folks would like you to believe. Honda understands that even those people that have long flat commutes, still occassionally do short "severe" drives.

Here are some good links about the 3000 mile interval myth:

http://www.nordicgroup.us/oil.htm#Oi...ge%20Intervals

http://home1.gte.net/vzep121w/ronspitstop/id27.html

http://www.lube4u.com/Lesson%201%20T...Conspiracy.htm

 

Don't forget to try www.bobistheoilguy.com

They are as passionate about petrolium products (even car wax!) as we are hybrids. LOTS of excellent info there!

 

M1 oil and filter @ 7500 miles in Accord and Civic EX's. 5k plus in Ranger with motorcraft oil and filters. The Ranger has been left to 10k once or twice in its 125k mile life. None of our cars use oil and get driven from putting around to alot of time in the upper 1/3 of the rpm range.

Please by all means change that oil.