The oil life is measured and displayed on the console as a percentage. At “15%”, the check engine light comes on, signaling the need for an oil change. My first oil change was at 10,000 miles! My mo also has the same car, same year. Her dealer insists that the oil only needs to be changed at 15% or once a year. My dealer is adamant that the oil should be changed every 5,000 miles. Who is right?!
There are different opinions on this. Your driving style and weather has a lot to do with how often the oil should be changed.
The dealer is going from his experience, which erred on the safe side.
I’m sure that stop and go driving in a cold winter would make the light go on a lot quicker.
Personally, I’d go with the dealer’s recommendation.
Who is “right” depends to a great extent on how long you intend to keep the vehicle.
If you change the oil as indicated by the car’s oil life monitoring system, you will preserve the warranty protection. And, if you are planning to get rid of the vehicle within…let’s say…4 years, it is very unlikely that you would experience any engine problems from this type of oil change regimen.
On the other hand, if you intend to keep this vehicle for…let’s say…80,000 miles or more, then those extended oil drain periods may well lead to sludge in the engine and/or excess engine wear. And, at that point, your warranty coverage would be over unless you bought an extended warranty.
As one of the more knowledgeable members of this board likes to say, the idea is to extend the life of the engine, not the life of the oil. Or, you might say, oil is relatively cheap, and engines are very expensive. Even if my car had an oil life monitor, there is no way that I would go longer than 5,000 miles/6 months between oil changes.
If you plan on keeping the vehicle for 150k miles which is design life standard across makes (many last longer) use the monitor. However a key thing is check the oil kevek occasionally over that time period or you will ruin the engine in short order.
At 5k miles in my opinion, and this is especially true if the car sees city driving; which most do.
If you’ve ever heard about engine oil sludging problems then a recommendation like a 10k miles oil change interval is a major cause of this problem.
Depending on the driving habits and conditions, in some severe cases a 2000-2500 miles oil change interval is needed.
Go with Honda’s recommendations .
Your dealer is out to maximize his own profit .
The computer in your CR-V is right. Change the oil when it tells you to. The computer monitors EVERYTHING. Temperature of the air and the engine, how many times you cold-start, how many miles you drive, whether you drive short trips or highway, how fast the engine turns, how hard you accelerate and brake, etc, etc, etc. There’s more to oil life than miles and time, and the computer knows all.
There’s nothing wrong with more frequent oil changes, but they really aren’t necessary. Your Honda dealer has a profit incentive, and he’s charging more for his oil and filter than the local parts store charges for theirs.
Trust the Honda engineers. They designed the vehicle and programmed the computer.