Clarity PHEV oil filter info

[KentuckyKen]

For those of us who change their own oil (and yes we know we’re not saving much $; it’s the principle of the thing) just because it’s practically the only thing we can do on the Clarity, here is some info on oil filters. Also good for those using the dealer so you can make sure they’re using the best Honda filter and not the cheaper one.

The good news is that our Clarity ICE uses the good old tried and true Honda filter made by Filtech that virtually all Hondas use.
Here is the difference between the 2 Honda filters available (from hands.com):
“Honda interchanges part#15400-PLM-A01 with 15400-PLM-A02. They stock and ship both to their dealerships however the A01's are the in-demand part number for Honda filters. One major difference is the A01 filters have metal end caps inside whereas the A02 filters have cardboard.” So be sure you’re getting the A01 if using Honda filters.

Here is a comparison on the cut open filters side by side:


Filter mfgs have not yet added the Clarity to their list except for Fram that I can find. Here is the Fram # (PH7317) you can use to cross reference filters from whatever mfg you wish to use.

Please note that I am NOT recommending Fram filters. They’re just the only Mfg I could find that had the Clarity listed. I am well aware of how “passionate” (politest word I could think of) people are over oil and filters. It’s crazy. Just go to bobistheoilguy.com if you have a 1,000 hours or so to go down that rabbit hole. So please, no flames on brands.
Ditto for oil brands. Any high quality synthetic detergent API certified 0W-20 weight oil will do. (Of course the gear heads among us “know” that we’re using the best brand and everyone else is stupid for using their brand.) LOL

And it’s a free country, so you can follow the owner’s manual or do your own thing on the change schedule. My hour meter hooked up to the ICE tells me (after 6 weeks) that even if all my ICE driving was at 70 mph, I’d still put less than 1,000 miles on the engine per year. But to avoid warranty issues, I’ll have to change it once per year. Bummer.

 

[JimW]

I'm sure that engine hours are stored in an OBD-II register. Has anyone tried pulling OBD-II codes from Clarity?

 

[KentuckyKen]

I'm sure that engine hours are stored in an OBD-II register. Has anyone tried pulling OBD-II codes from Clarity?

Here’s an update on the available oil filters I have found.
While the Amsoil website does not have our Clarity listed and has not of today updated the pull down menus for 2018 Hondas, a search using the Honda part # (verified by email w tech support) shows an Amsoil EA15K13 filter fits our Clarity. Just another choice and I’ll stay out of the argument about whether it’s worth the price.

 

[kkiran]

Looks like the first service is 9~10 months away for the 2018 Clarities. Long time unless you travel over 100 miles a day consistently.

 

[clarity_18]

my clarity pinged me this week that I'm due for my first oil change... car has about 6200 miles on it, roughly half are with the gas engine. i'll be changing the oil myself down the road, but I thought I'd bring it to the dealer for the first time. I really appreciate the info about the oil filters, i'll be sure to ask at the dealer.

 

[bpratt]

my clarity pinged me this week that I'm due for my first oil change... car has about 6200 miles on it, roughly half are with the gas engine. i'll be changing the oil myself down the road, but I thought I'd bring it to the dealer for the first time. I really appreciate the info about the oil filters, i'll be sure to ask at the dealer.

I've been using synthetic oil in my cars for years. My last car (2014 Camry Hybrid) required synthetic oil and recommended you change the oil at 10,000 miles or once a year. I intend to install synthetic oil and follow the 10,000 mile 1 year oil change at my first oil change. I wonder what Honda thinks of that idea.

 

[KentuckyKen]

I've been using synthetic oil in my cars for years. My last car (2014 Camry Hybrid) required synthetic oil and recommended you change the oil at 10,000 miles or once a year. I intend to install synthetic oil and follow the 10,000 mile 1 year oil change at my first oil change. I wonder what Honda thinks of that idea.

Honda should not make a warranty issue of that strategy since it is following their time limit of 1 year max and the ICE usage for 10,000 total miles will be well within their milage limits that used to be listed. I suspect that the Maintenance Minder may be as erroneous as the HV range if it’s using total miles as part of its calculation.
I drive about 10,000/yr and so far it’s 90/10 EV/HV, so ignoring the MM and going a full year will just be 1,000 actual ICE running.

 

[jdonalds]

Looks like the first service is 9~10 months away for the 2018 Clarities. Long time unless you travel over 100 miles a day consistently.

I took our Clarity in for A1 service this week, five months from purchase. We have about 7K miles on the car, but very little gas engine use.

 

[MrFixit]

I am now on a quest to obtain an oil filter for my first oil change...

It seems like the 'A01' filters mentioned by @KentuckyKen at the start of this thread have not been produced for quite some time. Yes, you can find some on Amazon and eBay, but along with these, you can also find many reports of people ordering the 'A01' and being sent the 'A02' instead. There are also some references to suspected 'counterfeit' A01 filters.

I do not want to fall into the trap of obsessing over this - There are plenty of people who do. I would greatly prefer to use a filter that is currently in production, rather than scrounging around trying to find old stock of a discontinued filter. Years ago, I stocked up on some OEM filters, and they started to show some rust after sitting around in the garage too long. I wound up throwing them away.

My thought is to just go with the filter that Honda recommends (the 15400-PLM-A02). Yes, it seems 'inferior', but it is extremely likely that is what all the non-DIY'ers are getting with dealer oil changes. In addition, the Clarity hardly stresses an oil filter (for most people). I will have ~10K miles (only ~3K of which are from the ICE). As such, I'll be doing the obligatory annual oil / filter changes.

Any other DIY'ers want to share their thoughts?

 

[Robert_Alabama]

I'm tending to agree with you on this. I get "free" maintenance from the dealership so I go with what they provide, which I suspect is the A02. I average about 20% driving on gasoline, so for me I feel like there isn't enough hours on the engine to worry too much about this during the required oil change interval.

 

[Evfred]

FWIW I am planning to use the Mobil 1 m1-110 filter and oil. Figured that the same stuff they put in Ferraris should be ok.

 

[Heino]

I've recently picked up the FRAM Ultra Synthetic Oil Filter, XG7317 - for my first DIY Clarity oil change. Its one of their premium oil filters which should compare favorable to the usual A01 filter I buy.

I went with the FRAM filter this time, since it was easy for me to buy everything I needed (oil + filter) from Wally World versus placing orders at different websites.

 

[craze1cars]

A02. I buy them in bulk off EBay to save pennies. As for them being inferior I some way? Every Honda services by every dealership in the world now gets the A02 filter. I’m not concerned.

And whatever 0w20 is on sale at the local big box store.

 

[graure]

I use the K&N HP1010 filter on all my Hondas. I didn't want to have to go chasing after rarer and rarer parts as time went on.

 

[Texas22Step]

I am now on a quest to obtain an oil filter for my first oil change...

It seems like the 'A01' filters mentioned by @KentuckyKen at the start of this thread have now not been produced for quite some time (note date of KK's post was in early 2018 anyway). Yes, you can still find some on Amazon and eBay, but along with these, you can also find many reports of people ordering the 'A01' and being sent the 'A02' instead. There are also some references to suspected 'counterfeit' A01 filters.

I do not want to fall into the trap of obsessing over this - There are plenty of people who do. I would greatly prefer to use a filter that is currently in production, rather than scrounging around trying to find old stock of a discontinued filter. Years ago, I stocked up on some OEM filters, and they started to show some rust after sitting around in the garage too long. I wound up throwing them away.

My thought is to just go with the filter that Honda recommends (the 15400-PLM-A02). Yes, it seems 'inferior', but it is extremely likely that is what all the non-DIY'ers are getting with dealer oil changes. In addition, the Clarity hardly stresses an oil filter (for most people). I will have ~10K miles (only ~3K of which are from the ICE). As such, I'll be doing the obligatory annual oil / filter changes.

Any other DIY'ers want to share their thoughts?

I also tried to look up the 'A01' filters at a couple of Honda part specialty houses, but received a "discontinued" part notice back. I am sure one can still find the 'A01' filters online somewhere, but it doesn't seem to be a mainstream Honda p/n any longer. (Please do note that @KentuckyKen's earlier post on this thread is dated "way back" in early April, 2018.)

That said, I have used the Fram XG7317 in my Hondas for quite some time, along with full synthetic oil. This is an upgraded Fram PH7317 mentioned by @KentuckyKen in his Apr 2018 post and does feature metal caps on both ends of the filter element and a filtration efficiency of 99%+. They are easy to purchase at Wally World ($8.97 each), Amazon or many auto parts stores, and Fram sometimes has $-off coupons on their web site that bring the price down another couple of bucks.

All of this said, it seems that everybody does have their own opinion on this subject, and the XG7317 may be unnecessary overkill and a waste of $ over the 'A02'. However, if one intends to keep a car for longer than a couple of years, on critical parts like oil filters I prefer to error in the excess direction (that is, I'd rather overspend $5 on a part like this than face far more expensive engine problems later).

I can recall reading another post on this forum discussing the oil change interval issue in Clarity PHEV's, in which someone posted that the Clarity's ICE engine may have to spool up quickly, stone cold, and provide propulsion to the car. This could easily happen in several ways, but common ones would be to call for HV mode without "warming up" the engine or to simply force the car to suddenly switch to ICE propulsion by running the EV range to zero. Perhaps there is more for one to consider in the oil filter selection than simply hours of use of the ICE?

 

[Lowell_Greenberg]

I'm tending to agree with you on this. I get "free" maintenance from the dealership so I go with what they provide, which I suspect is the A02. I average about 20% driving on gasoline, so for me I feel like there isn't enough hours on the engine to worry too much about this during the required oil change interval.

Does Maintenance Minder monitor the actual condition of the oil, or the assumed condition based on miles, start up, duration of drives, temperatures, etc. If the latter, how accurate is it?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

[Steven B]

Does Maintenance Minder monitor the actual condition of the oil, or the assumed condition based on miles, start up, duration of drives, temperatures, etc. If the latter, how accurate is it?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

Seems what Honda actually monitors to what degree is mostly proprietary but the belief is that it is mostly raw odometer driven. For my second oil change for an estimated 3000 miles with the engine on (record gallons of gas purchased and multiply by 45mpg), I sent off a sample of the oil for analysis. The results showed the oil was fine and could have gone much longer before replacing.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I’ve always have just bought the cheapest FRAM oil filter I can find, usually at Walmart. Just did for my next oil change.

Does anyone have first-hand experience with and brand of oil filter actually failing and causing engine damage? My thought is that it’s an extremely rare occurrence, and not high on my list of things to worry about.

 

[MrFixit]

I’ve always have just bought the cheapest FRAM oil filter I can find

@Fast Eddie B - I tend to agree with you... FRAM seems to have a bad reputation on-line, but I have always used them on all my cars too. If Purolator happened to be on sale instead of FRAM, then I would go that way (usually there is an oil bundle on-sale with one or the other). Of course, there are higher-end choices in both FRAM and Purolator, but I never bothered with them.

Because the Clarity is so new, and somewhat specialized, I think I will go with go with the OEM filter (the 15400-PLM-A02). because Honda would have no grounds to dispute this if something were to go wrong. If you buy them on-line instead of at the dealer, the price seems reasonable. I just ordered a set of 3 filters (also included replacement drain plug washers) for ~$9.00 per filter on Amazon. Didn't check with a dealer, but it seems likely they would be more.

 

[KentuckyKen]

I think I will go with go with the OEM filter (the 15400-PLM-A02). because Honda would have no grounds to dispute this if something were to go wrong.

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act in the US prevents Honda from doing this as long as the parts meet or better Honda’s requirements, which all reputable filters do. Same goes for the oil or any other part and maintenance cannot be required to be performed at a dealer to keep your warranty intact.
I have no idea if Canada has a similar protection.