Code A1 (Oil Change and Tire Rotation)

aapitten

aapitten

Active Member
Hey everyone,
So I'm thinking I'm one of the first to get the A1 code. (I thought I saw a thread before but can't find it now.)

Last week my Clarity started warning me I had an upcoming service. Code A1. I checked what A1 means (because it would be too easy if Honda just put the actual message on the LCD Screen...) and it looks like my car is asking for an oil change/ tire rotation.

It seems it gives you a 3-week advance notice. I am at about 6900 miles and 6 months in service. I would guess about 25% of those miles were done with the ICE running and the rest on battery. I find it curious that after only about 1700 ICE miles and 6 month's it is already wanting an oil change.

I'm starting to wonder if, like the HV range issues, someone forgot to 'factor out' the electric miles from the Oil Change reminder. Or perhaps the first maintenance is earlier than the others due to 'break in' or something to that effect. I would have expected my first maintenance to be at about 7500-10,000 ICE miles (or 1 year). Anyone else get an 'A1' already?
 
I agree. I had my A1 done a couple of months back. Yes it seemed too soon to me as well but I figured for the first oil change I'd go along with it. I'll be wanting to delay my next oil change, perhaps sticking to once per year. Our ICE use is less than 20% of our 10,000 miles I'd guess.

We drove over 1,200 miles last week in HV mode but even then the car will switch to EV every time it gets a chance. It looked to me like it was switching to EV mode 5-10% of the trip. This was by far the longest out of town trip we've taken.
 
Thanks for the reply! I'm with you. I'll play along for this first one but, after that I'm going to be more suspicious. I'll do as Honda recommends for the warranty period but, after that, I'm probably just going to go to once per year based on my current mileage rate. I do use high-quality synthetic and the better of the two Honda filters, so I don't see that being an issue.

I might even put in the engine hour meter as described in some other threads so I can track how much the ICE is really running a bit more accurately.
 
The hour meter is very cheap and easy to install. The manual says to change when MM says or in 1 year, whichever comes first.
My MM is indicating a sevice (won’t say which at this point) in 8 months or approximately 1 year from delivery. But I’ve only driven 2500 miles and they’re almost all EV with my hour meter showing only 2 hr12min I’d run time. Even at 70 mph, that’s less than 150 miles. So it extrapolates to less than 600 miles of ICE operation when the MM wants to charge the oil. So I assume mine is using time instead of miles since I drive so few miles.
It would not surprise me if it’s not separating out the HV from the EV miles for this and just using total miles which of course would greatly underestimate the remaining life of the oil since most of us do a lot of EV.
 
I'm going to put my lawyer hat on again folks - don't give Honda an excuse to avoid a warranty repair for failure to do maintenance as the car calls for it. Dealers love to play hardball on those repairs "because you didn't properly maintain the vehicle" under the warranty requirements.
 
KentuckyKen said:
The hour meter is very cheap and easy to install. The manual says to change when MM says or in 1 year, whichever comes first.
My MM is indicating a sevice (won’t say which at this point) in 8 months or approximately 1 year from delivery. But I’ve only driven 2500 miles and they’re almost all EV with my hour meter showing only 2 hr12min I’d run time. Even at 70 mph, that’s less than 150 miles. So it extrapolates to less than 600 miles of ICE operation when the MM wants to charge the oil. So I assume mine is using time instead of miles since I drive so few miles.
It would not surprise me if it’s not separating out the HV from the EV miles for this and just using total miles which of course would greatly underestimate the remaining life of the oil since most of us do a lot of EV.
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Can you share the link for the hour meter you installed along with install instructions? Sounds like a good idea. Thanks
 
dstrauss said:
I'm going to put my lawyer hat on again folks - don't give Honda an excuse to avoid a warranty repair for failure to do maintenance as the car calls for it. Dealers love to play hardball on those repairs "because you didn't properly maintain the vehicle" under the warranty requirements.
Click to expand...
Amen, preach it brother dstrauss!
May I add that if you do your maintenance yourself or at a local garage that you keep all your receipts since they won’t be in Honda’s electronic dealer records. Might save you a headache later.
 
aapitten said:
Hey everyone,

It seems it gives you a 3-week advance notice. I am at about 6900 miles and 6 months in service. I would guess about 25% of those miles were done with the ICE running and the rest on battery. I find it curious that after only about 1700 ICE miles and 6 month's it is already wanting an oil change.

I'm starting to wonder if, like the HV range issues, someone forgot to 'factor out' the electric miles from the Oil Change reminder. Or perhaps the first maintenance is earlier than the others due to 'break in' or something to that effect. I would have expected my first maintenance to be at about 7500-10,000 ICE miles (or 1 year). Anyone else get an 'A1' already?
Click to expand...

My A01 came up about the same mileage as yours. At the time, I estimated that I had probably 3000 miles on the engine.

Be sure to tell them to apply the fix described in Service Bulletin 18-069 (HV Range Fix) and all others they show in their system that we might not know about.
 
Steven B said:
....
Be sure to tell them to apply the fix described in Service Bulletin 18-069 (HV Range Fix) and all others they show in their system that we might not know about.
Click to expand...

I hadn't heard that Honda has a fix available for the HV Range problem. Is there a copy available of that Service Bulletin?
 
Steven B said:
My A01 came up about the same mileage as yours. At the time, I estimated that I had probably 3000 miles on the engine.

Be sure to tell them to apply the fix described in Service Bulletin 18-069 (HV Range Fix) and all others they show in their system that we might not know about.
Click to expand...
StevenB, is the fix already out? Last time I checked w my dealer he had the notification but not the fix. If the fix is out already, I’m going in today!

Also on the MM: I’m driving so little that I’m on tap for just 7,500m/yr after 4 months. I think this is why my MM has been indicating 8 months to first service since last month. This would be first at 11 m and now at 12 m since delivery. I would assume that other’s more normal miles per unit time would trigger a service sooner like at 6,000 m or so. I did read that the MM in other models will advance some items like tire rotations/inspections to coincide with oil changes in an attempt to reduce the number of separate trips to the dealer. Could be what’s going on here. Of course since it doesn’t appear that it’s separating the HV miles w ICE operation from the EV miles, then it’s greatly underestimating the remaining oil life. Hopefully the HV rangne fix will address this as well
 
I just had my first servicing in my Clarity PHEV (~8900 miles after ~4 months of ownership).

One thing to note is that the first few thousand miles on the engine will include things like the piston rings seating properly for the first time, and other moving parts becoming flush with each other and wearing into their proper positions. So the first maintenance check will likely be over a shorter time period than the second maintenance check, especially when regarding the oil and oil filter changing - the tiny metal shavings from the piston rings and other parts mating properly need to be filtered early on. I think this will be particularly important for a newer model engine like a Clarity, where there is less data on real-world drive cycles and how the engine wears under those conditions. I don't think it's anything to be worried about and I don't really think it's Honda trying to pull one over on us.
 
That is what I am wondering too. I am not worried about them pulling a fast one, but don't want oil changes unnecessarily tied to tire rotations or something silly.

I should trigger my second maintenance minder next month. At 12,000 miles now and have a 2,000 mile trip next month so will get a lot of gas miles too. If it doesn't trigger by 14,000 miles I will know the first service is different timing.
 
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