Second Service A01

Thanks - that seems like what ours is at. We're just over 10k miles and service says 5 weeks which at around 600 miles a week would put us in the 12k-13k range.

geo

 

So it's really not monitoring oil condition then?

 

I'm getting close to 6,000 miles, planning to take it in for A01 service when recommended and get the HV range fix (and any other upgrade campaigns). What did dealer charge for A01 service?

 

That's reasonable. Nice benefit of returning to Japanese car after years of German cars with $250 oil changes.

 

Mine came with "free oil changes for life" which I didn't think would be a big deal with the Clarity but I'm finding out I was wrong.
So, we had a $26 (or $27) charge for the rotation and no charge for the inspection/oil change.
There have been some owners quoted some pretty high prices for the A01 but I think that was in Canada - you may be able to find the thread with a little searching.

geo

 

Is everyone going to just keep changing out perfectly good oil? I am going to talk to the service department the next time this comes up and say the car info stated it needed oil changes once a year, so what gives?

 

I wonder if the HV range bug update will have any effect on this. No matter what the MM says or our milage, we have to change once per year per the manual. I’m OK with that but not at 7,000 total miles with all you’re EV driving and 2,000 m or less of HV (and even then ICE doesn’t run continuously). That is seriously underestimating the remaining oil life.
Not much we can do about it and not give Honda am excuse not to honor their warranty.
I did read that the MM will move up certian items sometimes to reduce the number of trips to dealer.
How much is an oil analysis?

 

According to several sources including Consumer Reports (where I read this recently), motor oil needs to be changed at least once a year, even if the engine is used rarely. In fact, one of the definitions of "severe conditions" is when the engine is used only occasionally and/or short durations. Under these circumstances, oil accumulates contaminants that compromise its properties for lubrication. Sorry folks, once the oil is in the crankcase, you need to replace it at least once a year.

 

Well said, which is exactly why it’s in the manual.
Fail to follow it at your own peril.

 

Anybody do the oil change themselves? I'm planning on doing the oil change myself. It looked like it wouldn't be too hard from the owner's manual. How hard is it to remove the oil filter? Sometimes the oil filter is in a very hard to reach place, and tough to get a good grip on it, for removal.

 

I’m planning on doing mine as I have down all my cars with a floor jack and 4 jack stands. It looks easy peasy. If you look down the front of the engine, you will see that the oil filter is visible and accessabile once the bottom cover is removed. You can also see that the cover opening comes far enough forward to make the filter easy to reach.

Here is some info on oil change:
Honda OEM is a Filtech 15400-PLM-A01, don’t get the A02 as it has paper end caps.
Amsoil filter is EA15K13
Royal Purple filter same as Amsoil
Fram filter is XG7317
0W-20 wt oil
3.5 qts with filter change
The filter takes a 65mm cap end type wrench or any adjustable one.
You will need a new gasket/crush washer for the drain plug. I got several from dealer for some spare change.
Oh, and be sure to grease the new filter’s gasket so it doesn’t stick to the block next time and you end up w 2 gaskets that blow out and leak oil everywhere. (Don’t ask how I know this!)

I know that by the time I drive to buy oil and filter and drive to dispose of the oil I’m not saving that much money; but it’s the principle of the thing. Oil, filters, plugs, and fluids are about the only work I can do on these new whiz bang cars. I like the 100,000 mile to a tune up or plug change intervals but I kinda miss the hands on days of timing lights, tachs and screwdrivers.

 

Has Honda’s MM changed recently? For many years, Honda’s MM has calculated oil life based on a myriad of factors such as engine run time per start-up, coolant and intake air temp at start-up, rpm, time since last change, miles since last change...seriously a lot of stuff. It used an algorithm to calculate, based on a bunch of engineering work and validation testing, how much useful life was left in the engine oil based on all the vast number of operating parameters tracked.

Everything else was purely miles-based, but grouped with what the MM predicted would be the ‘nearest’ oil change for owner convenience.

An example:
Operating conditions and usage determine that an oil change is due at 28,800 miles. The MM pushes the owner to that service point. The service mileage table stored in the MM system says that an air filter change is due at 30,000 miles. Previous use data in that car shows (to the MM) that the next oil change will likely come due at about 35,500 miles. The 28,800-mile service is closer to 30k than the predicted 35,500-mile service would be, so the MM also flags an air filter change for this current (28,800-mile) service. (Please excuse me for not having my owner’s manual in front of me, and not recalling the code for that service).

Service items are grouped together, again for owner convenience and simplicity. So, if an air filter service is due, that code also indicates other services; perhaps a rear axle fluid change in my Ridgeline, for example. Too, Honda indicated a filter change every other oil change for many years.

Has Honda changed the basic operation of the MM system? They may have, though it must have been pretty recently if so. Either way, engine oil is almost certainly still the driver for engin oil change services. Some other systems may also have algorithms by now to determine when they need service, but I don’t see much evidence of that at present.

Curious to hear whether the system has changed, but in any case I would not suggest ignoring engine oil change indicators without specific analytical work to back up the propriety of that decision.

 

...I don't miss it one bit...

 

If anyone wants to do any oil analysis, I recommend Blackstone Labs in Indiana. They will mail you their collection kit for free and then when you send in the sample, the analysis is $28.

https://www.blackstone-labs.com

 

LabOne in Phoenix does great work for a great price. I use them for the fleet and emergency generators, as well as my own vehicles.

http://laboneinc.com/

 

I didn't even know oil analysis was a thing.