When I bought my Honda Fit 3 years ago, it was advertised to need its oil replaced only once every 10,000 miles (with non-synthetic oil). However the salesman said it should really be replaced every 5000 miles. The oil life meter on the dashboard seems to be calibrated for 10,000 mile intervals.
For the most part, I have tried to maintain a 5000 mile replacement schedule.
For non-synthetic oil, 10,000 miles seems awfully far.
Does anybody know the answer?
Thanks!
Ten thousand is way too long in my opinion and even 5k miles may be too long all depending upon driving habits, enviro conditions, and a number of other factors.
If you’ve ever heard of oil sludging then keep in mind that extending the oil change intervals is the root cause of that problem.
Price a replacement engine for your Fit and base your decision on that…5K max…
More than a few people have had to price replacement engines after the fact… 
What kind of driving do you do?
There’s no cut and dry answer. Begin reading on page 245.
However, it is not mandatory to use synthetic oil. Read pages 253 - 254.
Oil change intervals have been growing in recent years. Due to environmental mandates, cars sold in Europe have had them 5-10 years ahead of those sold in the US.
While many vehicle owners in the US successfully use the 10K intervals, as with any transition nothing is smooth, so there are cases where engine life has suffered.
Opinions do vary. Since the number of problems caused by these extended intervals have been minimal, I believe they are here to stay.
A lot of the advice we give here is good, but also out of habit, we are recommending to not follow the manufacturer reccommendation in this case.
I feel like this is the same scenario as when everyone was stuck on the 3K changes. We slowly moved to 5K and some even are going to 7.5K even though the owners manuals have stated this for over 10 years.
You can be safe and change the oil every week, and ignore the manual from the manufacturer. Or you can just go with the Oil monitor/and 10K miles. Neither will hurt your engine.
I concur with most of the posters. If you are doing mostly city and suberban driving 5000 miles is about right, regardless of what the oil monitor says. Alternatively, change the oil and filter when the oil monitor reads 50% remaining.
Using synthetic oil does not make a lot of difference; as @ok4450 comments, sludge will form no matter what kind of oil you use.
If you are in sales and just drive the highways from city to city at legal speeds, 10,000 miles is OK. That’s the ideal driving environment and applies to only a few drivers.
The worst driving envornment is if you park outside overnight in a cold region, do not use an engine block heater and only drive short trips, never allowing the engine to properly warm up. With that type of driving, smart owners will change oil as often as 2000-3000 miles.
Again, oil is cheap and engines are expensive.
Salesmen say all kinds of things. They would also love to sell you a new car in a few years, or a new engine for this car. It’s their job to sell you things, not to watch out for what is best for you or your car.
No engine was ever damaged by changing its oil too often…Uncounted engines have been damaged or destroyed by extending oil changes too far…Even worse, oil levels seldom are checked any more…Drivers assume their cars burn no oil and don’t bother checking until the red “oil” light comes on…Then they add 4 quarts of oil and count that as an oil change! This board is full of their sad laments…
Like said before I change oil at 5000 or 50% oil life monitor. Synthetic or not.
I drive 40,000 miles a year. I run synthetic and change every 7,500 miles. I used to change oil every 3,000 but have been running the 7,500/synthetic regimen for 15 years now and have had zero engine problems. My son is still driving my old 200,000 mile Accord.
@bloody_knuckles At 40,000 miles per year you are mostly driving a well warmed up car and at about 750 trips per year (2+ per day), your average trip length is 53 miles. That’s very easy on oil. You probably don’t need synthetic oil unless you have a turbo equipped car or drive a European model, or tow something heavy, or it is a newer model and the manufacturer specifies it.
Your past good luck with cars is not due to the type of oil you use , but more your driving style and good care.
However, I’m not trying to dissuade you from using synthetic; I use it myself, but I’m semi-retired, drive much less (short trips) and live in a very cold area. I like the -50 pour point. We go 5000 miles max or every 5 months.
However, since you have a Mazda 3 SkyActive, the book likely specifies 0W20 oil, which has to be synthetic. On our Mazda3 (2012), it says 0W20 right on the oil filler cap.
You are supposed to change the oil when it gets below 15% remaining. That might be 8500 miles for you. OLMs have been around for 25 years and have been studied by professional organizations like SAE. I would not (and do not) hesitate to use them on all my cars. We have 140,000 miles on the Olds with an OLM and it does not use oil between oil changes.
@Docknick - I like the synthetic, even in my other vehicles because it gets COLD here in the winter. The synthetic helps my motors crank faster and get lubrication more quickly, even when the temperature drops to zero or below. In the summer I know I probably don’t NEED the synthetic but I know it fights sludging more effectively than conventional oil.
I too have used the synthetic oil/7500 mile interval in several cars and never had a problem either. I currently have a car and a truck with over 180k on each doing that and neither burn any oil. a third car is at 172k and it only burns a little oil (or leaks, there are signs of that, it looses about 1 qt between changes).
The Saturn which is at 255k now has an oil life monitor so I change the oil when the light comes on but use conventional oil. It does use more oil, about a quart every 1500 miles (1100 miles on a cross country trip), but Saturn’s are known for that.