High mileage Clarity owners

The recommendation is to change the oil at least once a year. I also have mostly EV miles, so the one year interval comes along before reaching any kind of mileage threshold for the ICE. My maintenance minder has triggered an oil change reminder in concert with each year point since it was new in 2018.

 

I have 146K on my Clarity, but it is mostly ICE operation.

My one problem was a front wheel bearing. My tires wore out quickly, with the front driver side the worst. I never noticed any looseness in the bearing, until it actually got loud. After replacing the wheel bearing (50K miles ago), the tire wear is dramatically better.

I had heard of front wheel bearing problems, but I never had noise, so I did not think it was me. Seems like excessive tire wear is another symptom of a wheel bearing problem.

My other problem is a recent deer hit, but the Clarity handled it pretty well, and I am still driving it.

 

If you're not changing the oil each time the maintenance minder tells you to, you have potentially invalidated the extended warranty. Honda may or may not call you out on it if you have an engine issue in the warranty period.

 

I know you are just stating this as a possibility, but is there any evidence, even anecdotal of someone being denied warranty because of not following the minder? Meaning even though the owner provided evidence that they changed the oil at least once a year, the dealer presented the owner with a printout showing all of the minder messages that the owner received, and the dates that they received the messages. It's theoretically possible, but seems to be mainly conjecture unless someone has first hand knowledge of this actually happening. Also engine problems are extremely rare during a warranty period anyway, adding to the unlikelihood of this actually happening. But if someone thinks it's possible and feels they would rather be safe than sorry, I can't prove that there is no risk. But for myself I think it's so unlikely that I don't worry about it and I just change my oil once a year, and would only change it more often if I were driving more gas miles.

 

Yeah I agree its unlikely, but Honda is generally known for being difficult with their warranties. Here's a story of a Pilot owner it seems like Honda was just trying to come up with whatever excuse they could to deny and used the non-dealer oil changes as an excuse. https://www.piloteers.org/threads/honda-denied-my-2016-exl-engine-warranty-claim-need-help-and-advice.159425/

 

I have 166K. I change oil about every 10K miles.


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I have a shade over 50k miles over the last three years. I have a 70-100 mile daily commute. I get about 35ish EV miles and the rest is ICE. I change the oil twice a year......basically whenever the MM tells me too. I did it this weekend actually. If you have a setup (ramps or jacks/jack stands) and tools (ratchet and oil filter wrench) it might take 15 minutes. That and I KNOW I did it and I did it correctly. It's easy peasy.

 

I just bought a 2018 with 51k and my commute is the same as you described. This makes me feel good about my decision!

 

I have heard enough stories about things going wrong when people take their car in for an oil change that I have always done it myself on every car that I have owned. Takes me longer than 15 minutes if I include getting set up and the cleanup afterwards, but still less time than I would spend taking it somewhere. And then hoping they didn't underfill or overfill, cross thread the drain nut, or the myriad other things that can potentially go wrong if someone is careless.

As for following the maintenance minder for oil changes, that makes sense in your situation because about 10,000 of your 16,000 annual miles use the engine. So essentially you are changing the oil about every 5,000 miles of engine use.

There are a lot of people who drive say 40 miles a day on weekdays, or about 10,000 miles per year, but rarely use gas, to the point that some of them have to decide whether they should purposely burn some gas when their tank is not empty after a year. However the maintenance minder for oil changes completely disregards EV miles vs. ICE miles and pops up an oil change message after about 6,000 miles of driving even if most of it was EV. That's why people who don't drive a lot of gas miles typically ignore the maintenance minder and just change the oil once a year.

 

We got oil change maintenance schedule from Honda Accord and it's completely ignoring EV miles, counting all as ICE.

 

I've driven in EV mode for so long that the car once started the engine for no reason with the message: 'running engine to cycle oil'

The once a year oil change is mainly because of water absorption for synthetics starting to degrade performance. If you want optimal performance you should change the oil once a year regardless of mileage. Especially if you put yourself in situations where your engine revs really high.

Having said that, if the engine is sealed well like in the chevy volt, the dexos1 standard for oil (which i think is pretty much all synthetic oils now a days) can last up to two years in the engine. I've been assuming the clarity is not as well built despite it's amazing sealed/pressurized gas tank.

 

I also do an oil change once a year, plus I try to run the gas engine a little bit every other week.
Also I try to fill the gas tank at least once every three months to prevent the gas be stale and damage something.
Think of it as a lawn mower that was stored during winter and won't start in the spring because the gas left in the tank went bad.

 

So this is where the clarity's advanced gas tank makes a huge difference. The clarity is not like a lawnmower. The gas won't go bad. It is pressurized and sealed (why you can't open it without venting the excess pressure first). While I probably would try to use the gas up within two years as that's the minimum (as in lasts at least two years) shelf life for properly sealed gas. It can apparently be up to TEN YEARS.. but again I would do about two just to be safe.. and also to maintain your engine.

Now a warning. constantly topping up your gas every three months might actually be doing more harm than good depending on how much gas you used and need to replace as every time you open and fill the tank you are introducing more water and allowing the volatile elements to be vented. I would not open or fill the tank until it's at least a half or a quarter tank if you don't use that much gas.

 

Thanks for the advice!
I wait until the gas tank is almost empty before I fill up.
I didn't know about the pressurized gas tank.
Thanks

 

I'm at 78K miles, origainal owner from 2/2018, and found a general way to know when to change the oil. I take a pic of all the gas receipts, later put in a spreadsheet. See my total gallons X 41 miles per (base on what type of driving I do) and now I have an average how many miles was with gas.

 

Where did you hear the 10 year figure?

 

You assumed a Chevrolet is better built than a Honda from Japan? I've had great luck with Hondas since my 1986 CRX, but my 1959 Chevy broke a valve spring in 1968 after just 40,000 miles!

 

I saw someone test out some sunoco 94 racing fuel (that is sealed in these large cans) that had been sitting for 10 years to see if it would still run a motorcycle engine and apparently it was just fine (coloour was fine and everything). It was on youtube, and I can't really find it now, though while trying to look for it I did see several examples where really old, clearly bad, fuel still seemed to run things like snow blowers and lawnmowers so who knows.. i don't think I would trust brown fuel in my car.