I knew the bobistheoilguy obsessive-compulsive’s would get in on this sooner or later…
As a Service Advisor and certified tech, you should know the owners manual should have been adhered to without deviation.
He did.
The owners manual in his car says to use the oil monitoring system to know when it is time to change the engine oil.
His wife does ONLY massive amounts of highway driving, daily.
This is the easiest use on an engine oil, and he stated himself that he actually had been changing the oil long before the system told him he should have.
Is it really so hard to understand that he has in fact been taking care of his car quite well? Only 1 instance of the car being low on oil while he has owned the car. The care of the car before they owned it is completely unknown.
BC.
I’ve been here since the very beginning, thank you very much.
Also, I don’t qualify as obsessive-compulsive.
I still only change my oil at 7500 mile intervals, which is the non-severe service for my Altima. And my Boxster gets its oil changed every 5k miles, which is way lower than the original 10k mile recommendation.
I use their site for information about oil quality, and see how it looks in similar engines, under various uses, and how they compare against other oils in similar engines, under similar use.
Again, the way the car is being used, is extremely easy on the engine oil.
All highway miles, for long distances, daily.
The car isn’t in stop and go driving, while towing a 2k pound trailer, up the Continental Divide.
If the oil change interval was even remotely an issue, Honda wouldn’t be tearing this engine down on their own dime. If Honda doesn’t have any issues with this oil change interval, and they designed the car’s on board oil life monitor to expect this oil change interval under these driving conditions, and the owner is keeping an eye on his oil usage and topping off the oil level frequently, with only 1 instance of him getting caught unawares.
I believe a lot of you have been cruel to the OP, with no justification.
You’ve been accusing him of not following the owners manual, when in fact, he has been.
You have been accusing him of using the incorrect oil, when in fact, he has been using a good quality oil, that is at least as good as what Honda devised their oil life monitoring system around.
You have been accusing him of not changing his oil frequently enough, when he’s actually been exceeding the oil life monitoring system designed by Honda.
If the OP could take pictures of the engine as its torn down, it would be interesting to see the condition of the pistons, rings, and cylinder walls. Maybe that will silence the people who have been very vocal about the OP damaging and neglecting his vehicle.
Maybe a note from the dealership that is performing the work with regards as to how the engine looked when they tore it down.
So far, I don’t see any evidence provided at all that indicates that the OP has done ANYTHING at all outside of what Honda recommends for his car. Not a single thing. And yet some of you continue to berate him, or come just shy of doing so.
Some of you are acting way less than the Professionals that you try to portray yourselves as on here.
BC.
“I put clean MOBIL 1 SYNTHETIC and in 1200 miles it is dark regardless of level something is wrong.”
That’s likely a sign of ring problems.
Too much oil is left on the cylinder walls when the piston goes down.
During the power stroke oil that doesn’t get burned away can get singed and blackened,
then mixed with the “fresh” oil delivered on the next up-stroke.
With each up and down motion of the piston the rings give the cylinder wall a quick bath of oil then scrape almost all of it away.
Also, blowby contains a lot of partly burned fuel and soot.
Owners manuals state a lot of things, many of which are incorrect because those recommendations are often whitewashed and the manual generally stashes an asterisk marked “Severe Service” disclaimer somewhere. That means more often than stated and that applies to almost every vehicle on the real world roadways.
If the car has never been chronically or severely overheated, gambling money says the piston rings are coked to the pistons. The 145 compression pretty much says it all as to rings being the issue.
I was waiting for someone to bring up the service writer angle of this.
The mindset that if something is wrong with a car so the"customer" must have done something wrong really should be addressed. Thier are exceptions to every rule. Oil’s job is to suspend particulates which protects the moving parts. As long as oil is not getting cooked or entering the combustion chamber there is little other reason that I couldn’t run the oil through a centifugal filter or he and reuse it. Oil breaks down for 3 reasons 1.Oxydation - which doesn’t really affect synthetic, 2.Thermal failure- which should not be an issue in a healthy engine without blowby, unless your engine is running 400 deg.F 3.Compressive failue- see number 2. A car driven at 2000 rpms, at highway speed and normal operating temp, running “clean” should not have issue. Unless blowby is the issue. This was a Honda leased turn in I believe. “All services on record” when I bought it. At what point did I cause an issue? At 27k I changed oil early. So the rings started to coke at 30k with Mobil 1 and because I drove 7k more this is my doing? New fuel injested vehicles do not flood engines, lean engines, spark knock, etc. thanks to adaptive stratagies. everything burns cleaner, wears less and lasts longer! 3k oil changes were for carbed engines that destroyed the crappy oil that was available then. I bet I could drain my other Accord which is ready for a change send you a large sample and you could not tell how many miles were on it. It has 218k mile and stays clean with 10k changes. Same 2.4 as in the 08. Who likes 3k changes? Lube techs and parts stores!
For the lack of a nail the shoe was lost… If this is not an exercise in internet gamesmanship I would want to add that when an engine’s oil is so low as to drop the pressure there is usually a degree of operator error. Just an observation.
“Who likes 3k changes?”
Who said 3k changes?
For instance, my Owners Manual says 5k or 6 months, which is what I do, at least until the warranty runs out.
Since I drive only 2-3 times a week one oil change a year (~4000 miles) should be an OK interval later on.
Most think I’m nuts for 10k Synthetic. If you drive very little and short distance you are worse on your oil than we are. My moisture is “boiled” out. I went by my manual also which has you rely on a stupid monitor that “tell’s you” when to change it. Eery time I am changing early with 15-20% “oil life left”. If you run out of fuel and the gauge reads “almost” empty are you to blame for not putting a yard stick in the tank to check the level? I wish the manufacture had given us a alternate schedule but they did not so I used my own. If you have an 08 Accord manual handy it is a must-read I enjoy it so.
My '88 Accord LXi had 219k miles and 22 years when I sold it.
The only time it burned a measurable amount of oil was cruising across Arizona and Texas in July of 2001 at ~85mph.
In the early part of its life I drove 46 miles round trip to work.
The manual called for 6mos or 7500mi oil changes, but I kept it to 5k max.
What oil?
No demands were made. Read rest of post.
Conventional Castrol or Penzoil, 5w-30 or 10w-30(summer road trips).
I run Mobil 1 full synthetic with Mobil 1 filter I also change silencer (air filter every 20k) Mobil 1 is the same general formula as Amsoil which they claim 20k. I don’t think my 10k change is worse. Also I’m in NC not too hot or dusty.
I did. Look. This is not hard. You decided not to properly maintain your car. And don’t tell me that they told you it was OK to go 10k miles when you bought it. Even if that’s true, a car salesman will tell you your car is seaworthy if he thinks it’ll make you sign the check. No one with any whit of sense whatsoever listens to what the salescritters at the dealership tells them about anything.
Then your wife decided to run it with low or no oil pressure for several miles. I get that she probably didn’t understand that bright blinky lights on the dash are generally a bad thing. I’m not sure why she didn’t understand that, but there you have it - she didn’t get it, and drove around with bad oil pressure anyway. That’s not Honda’s fault.
That you have the chutzpah to march up to the dealership and ask for ANY warranty work on the engine at ALL is amazing, and you clearly left the part about your wife running the engine dry out of your story when you talked to them, because otherwise they would have been fully within their right to close the door on warranty work, period, on that engine. And now that they’ve, very kindly from my view, worked on your engine and apparently have done a ring job, you want them to replace the cat too, just in case yours and your wife’s negligence wrecked something else, even though there’s no evidence that this has happened in the first place.
It’s pretty clear, at least from what you’ve said, that you want the dealership to make up for your screwups. Be happy that they’ve done this much, and be aware that they didn’t have to, nor should they have. Quit while you’re ahead.
Thanks dude. Ask the others how comfortable they are in the box and we’ll do our thinking out here.
It’s for want of a nail. That’s the proverb. Checkmate
The oil monitor tells you only WHEN to CHANGE the oil, it has no clue as to the oil LEVEL and CONDITION. It’s a rather stupid analog computer. You still have to check it regulary, read your manual, like every 2 tankfuls of gas at least. The oil monitor is not a chemical analyzer to tell you when the oil is BAD. It derives the change oil set-point from your DRIVING PATTERN and that is very easy on oil.
EXCEPT when the LEVEL goes down when you don’t check it regularly, the low level oil has to work so much harder, and ultimately fails.
You should know that synthetic oil is VERY SLIPPERY due to the uniform molecule size and absence of wax. That means thta the oil can disappear through tiny openings more quickly than regular oil ,and this oil consumption can actually drain the crankcase before the DRIVING PATTERN- drive oil monitor tell you to change it.
Please excuse me.