Cost of A01 service?

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The murky world of "0" service.

The basic concept is that there are things that can go wrong on your car that a trained mechanic can spot with visual inspection (and a little bit of shaking for some suspension parts).

How common is it for the following "0" inspection items to fail in say the first 50,000 miles:

Inspect front and rear brakes
Check expiration date for Temporary Tire Repair kit
Inspect these items:
• Tie rod ends, steering gearbox, and boots
• Suspension components
• Driveshaft boots
• Brake hoses and lines (including ABS/VSA)
• All fluid levels and condition of fluids
• Exhaust system
• Fuel lines and connections
• Under body battery cover

Any of these could in theory be prone to early failure which could be caught by visual inspection. But the next question is, how do you gauge the competence and value of the inspection that your car is (supposedly) getting? If I knew that a top mechanic with extensive knowledge and excellent inspection skills will be giving careful attention to inspecting my car, sure I would probably be willing to pay $100 for that, even if the parts that they are inspecting are highly unlikely to fail in the first 100,000 or so miles, why not make sure.

But how do you know it's not just the grease monkey oil change guy who will be doing the inspection, having been told by his superiors "just look to make sure nothing is leaking or has fallen off, and anyway nothing goes wrong with these parts anyway on a car this new, so don't spend a lot of time on it".

It's like anything with car repair, you never really know for sure. But if your car shakes whenever you make a turn, you know if they fixed it because when they are done the car doesn't shake anymore. But there's really no way to know if an inspection was done right, or even done at all. Just makes me hesitant to pay $100 for an inspection. And on the flip side, if the inspection is "free" along with a $40 oil and filter change, should I feel good about that, or worry that maybe they really didn't do anything other than have the oil change guy glance under the car while the oil was draining.

Just think how many people experience PDI checklists with everything checked off, but they find several items undone, which makes you wonder how many things were actually checked during PDI, if any? I wonder the same thing about warranty service inspections.

4sallypat said:
Most likely since your Clarity uses synthetic and pricey 0W20 weight, there will be a surcharge
Click to expand...

Actually synthetic is not specified:

Recommended Engine Oil
• Genuine Honda Motor Oil
• Premium-grade 0W-20 detergent oil with an API Certification Seal on
the container.

■ Synthetic oil
You may also use synthetic motor oil if it is labeled with the API Certification Seal
and is the specified viscosity grade.
 
I bought my Clarity new in June. I'm getting the same service notification A01 Due soon - maybe for the last couple of weeks. 3 questions;

How many miles early does this come on?
Does the Due mileage vary, depending on how much the engine has run?
There is a dealer closer to me that didn't have a Clarity on the lot when I purchased from another (further) dealer. Should I be concerned about taking it to the closer (less Clarity experience) dealer for routine maintenance?
 
As you may have read earlier in the thread, there are 3 parts to the 'A01'.
The 'A' is an oil change, the '0' is a general inspection, and the '1' is tire rotation.

We have learned that Honda aggregates these "for your convenience" and notifies you when the earliest one is due. If you are so-inclined, you can rotate the tires yourself and clear the '1'. This will take away the notification for quite some time (maybe a few months) until the oil change is really due.

In my case I got the 'A01' at 6800 miles (it said due in 4 weeks). I rotated the tires and cleared the '1'. This removed the notification and when I manually queried it, then it was saying I had 3 months until the service was due. For me, that would put me at 1 year, which is the maximum recommended time interval for an oil change.
 
MrFixit said:
As you may have read earlier in the thread, there are 3 parts to the 'A01'.
The 'A' is an oil change, the '0' is a general inspection, and the '1' is tire rotation.

We have learned that Honda aggregates these "for your convenience" and notifies you when the earliest one is due. If you are so-inclined, you can rotate the tires yourself and clear the '1'. This will take away the notification for quite some time (maybe a few months) until the oil change is really due.

In my case I got the 'A01' at 6800 miles (it said due in 4 weeks). I rotated the tires and cleared the '1'. This removed the notification and when I manually queried it, then it was saying I had 3 months until the service was due. For me, that would put me at 1 year, which is the maximum recommended time interval for an oil change.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that you can manually clear the "1" of the "A01", and it will then continue as if "A0" has not been performed and will remind you when the earlier of the "A0" is due? In your example, it suggested to perform "A0" 3 months later? Can you confirm? Thanks!
 
Interesting. That is cool. Another question- Is the last digit, in this case "1" in "A01", the most "urgent" or "recent" required service? In other words, is there a chance that you could have a reminder that shows "1A0", whereby the rotation is required, but subsequent to the oil change, in terms of urgency/timing?

That would be even cooler but I doubt that is the case.
 
No. Keep track of the order you do things in manually. It can get a little murky so take good notes for yourself if you're gonna split the services up.
 
Jeffrey D. Titus said:
I bought my Clarity new in June. I'm getting the same service notification A01 Due soon - maybe for the last couple of weeks. 3 questions;

How many miles early does this come on?
Does the Due mileage vary, depending on how much the engine has run?
There is a dealer closer to me that didn't have a Clarity on the lot when I purchased from another (further) dealer. Should I be concerned about taking it to the closer (less Clarity experience) dealer for routine maintenance?
Click to expand...
It’s the consensus that the Maintenance Minder does not separate out HV or engine running miles and so will trigger an oil change way before it’s needed unless you’re driving a huge amount in HV. It’s also possible to have it let you go a few months longer if you reset just the tire rotation. The manual says you can go as long as a year between oil changes if the MM does not trigger. Several of us who drive mostly EV with relatively small miles in HV change at the one year interval.

FWIW, my MM triggered at 12 months with me driving <8,000 miles/yr (only ~750 in HV). I think it was the total miles being so low that let it go 12 months for me. Several reports seem to suggest the trigger is around 7,500 miles or so.

I doubt that most dealers have any more experience with the Clarity than my trusted local mechanic whom I used for the A01 service. And inspection, tire rotation and oil change are not rocket science. So any reputable dealer can do this. I, for one, refuse to pay inflated dealer prices for such basic services. I made a form with the inspection points and had my trusted local mechanic check my Clarity when he rotated the tires and changed the oil (I got lazy and didn’t do it my self in the cold this go round).

The Magnuson-Moss Act protects you from Honda requiring that Honda parts be used or services be done at the dealer. Parts just have to meet the same requirements and if you keep records of everything that was done, Honda cannot deny any warranty claim. Finding a mechanic, shop, or even dealer that you trust is more important IMHO than who has more experience (not that many dealers have much with the Clarity) when it’s about such basic services.
 
Kundan said:
Interesting. That is cool. Another question- Is the last digit, in this case "1" in "A01", the most "urgent" or "recent" required service? In other words, is there a chance that you could have a reminder that shows "1A0", whereby the rotation is required, but subsequent to the oil change, in terms of urgency/timing?

That would be even cooler but I doubt that is the case.
Click to expand...
I have written about this a number of times before but here it comes again. The service is bundled together. Oil change, and tire rotation are the two that always come together. Honda says to rotate tires at 7,500 miles so a A01 service comes up every 7,500 miles. If you rotate your own tires or take it to a place like Discount tires (who has done mine for free) then the time to take in the car for service will be extended by ONLY resetting the tire rotation and nothing else. When I did that I got another 5 months before was given the code A01 again. THIS DOES NOT affect the warranty in any way you are only doing the tire rotation and the A0 (oil change and inspection) has not been reset so no problems.
 
Kundan said:
Are you saying that you can manually clear the "1" of the "A01", and it will then continue as if "A0" has not been performed and will remind you when the earlier of the "A0" is due? In your example, it suggested to perform "A0" 3 months later? Can you confirm? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Yes! @MrFixit describes it exactly. Since i change summer/winter tires twice a year and do about 10000 miles per year (It will be a little less this year since I missed one 500 mi round trip.) I got the A01 notice at about 6500 mi. I reset the MM to say the tires had been rotated and the notice went away and said it would be another 3 months. It is now nearly 9000 mi and the Service due has reappeared nearly a year since I bought the car.
 
One question about this [that I think has not been answered]...

Is the "tire rotation timer" independent of the other two services? Let's say the tire rotation interval is 7500 as @stacey burke indicates (my maintenance minder came on at 6800 with a 4 week advance notice so that seems about right). I rotate the tires and reset the '1'. When will the next tire rotation reminder occur?

1. at ~15,000 miles (7500 from when the 1st one was "due")?
2. at ~14,300 (7500 miles from when the 1st one was "performed")?

In either event, the oil change has it's own cycle based on either miles or calendar time (depending on usage), then you would expect it to NOT bundle services at some point because it will drift away from the tire rotation to the point where bundling no longer makes any sense.

Has anyone experienced this? Initially everyone seems to get the A01, but subsequently, I assume some people have just gotten 'A', or 'A0' ? Then at some other time later, just a '1' for rotation?
 
MrFixit said:
One question about this [that I think has not been answered]...

Is the "tire rotation timer" independent of the other two services? Let's say the tire rotation interval is 7500 as @stacey burke indicates (my maintenance minder came on at 6800 with a 4 week advance notice so that seems about right). I rotate the tires and reset the '1'. When will the next tire rotation reminder occur?

1. at ~15,000 miles (7500 from when the 1st one was "due")?
2. at ~14,300 (7500 miles from when the 1st one was "performed")?

In either event, the oil change has it's own cycle based on either miles or calendar time (depending on usage), then you would expect it to NOT bundle services at some point because it will drift away from the tire rotation to the point where bundling no longer makes any sense.

Has anyone experienced this? Initially everyone seems to get the A01, but subsequently, I assume some people have just gotten 'A', or 'A0' ? Then at some other time later, just a '1' for rotation?
Click to expand...

I'd like to know this as well. I am not sure if the system is this sophisticated.
 
I paid ~$45 for my first A01, which was half off the regular price. I did this at approximately 11,500 mi, which was several thousand miles after I reset the 1 tire rotation reminder per the instructions mentioned earlier in this thread.
 
MrFixit said:
One question about this [that I think has not been answered]...

Is the "tire rotation timer" independent of the other two services? Let's say the tire rotation interval is 7500 as @stacey burke indicates (my maintenance minder came on at 6800 with a 4 week advance notice so that seems about right). I rotate the tires and reset the '1'. When will the next tire rotation reminder occur?

1. at ~15,000 miles (7500 from when the 1st one was "due")?
2. at ~14,300 (7500 miles from when the 1st one was "performed")?

In either event, the oil change has it's own cycle based on either miles or calendar time (depending on usage), then you would expect it to NOT bundle services at some point because it will drift away from the tire rotation to the point where bundling no longer makes any sense.

Has anyone experienced this? Initially everyone seems to get the A01, but subsequently, I assume some people have just gotten 'A', or 'A0' ? Then at some other time later, just a '1' for rotation?
Click to expand...

We just returned from a 6,500 mile trip in our Clarity (I'm plan to write up a report on it), and based on our experience, the "1" pops up along with other codes much earlier than needed. Here are the details:

We had our first A01 service back in May with 7311 miles on the car. We started the trip on September 7.

Because we were putting on miles much more rapidly than we do at home, in the space of two weeks the Maintenance Minder went from "due in 3 months" to "Service due now A01."

I had the tires rotated at a local tire store along the way at 14302 miles and reset the "1" in the Maintenance Minder. At that point it reverted to "Service due in 5 weeks." Later in the trip, it changed to "Service due in 4 weeks A012." This morning, at 17805 miles it says "Service due in 12 days A012."

I'm not sure what mileage it's projecting for the oil change (although with 10,000 miles since the last one, a significant percentage running the ICE, it seems sensible), but 3500 miles is way too soon for another tire rotation.
 
Clarity Dave said:
We just returned from a 6,500 mile trip in our Clarity (I'm plan to write up a report on it), and based on our experience, the "1" pops up along with other codes much earlier than needed. Here are the details:

We had our first A01 service back in May with 7311 miles on the car. We started the trip on September 7.

Because we were putting on miles much more rapidly than we do at home, in the space of two weeks the Maintenance Minder went from "due in 3 months" to "Service due now A01."

I had the tires rotated at a local tire store along the way at 14302 miles and reset the "1" in the Maintenance Minder. At that point it reverted to "Service due in 5 weeks." Later in the trip, it changed to "Service due in 4 weeks A012." This morning, at 17805 miles it says "Service due in 12 days A012."

I'm not sure what mileage it's projecting for the oil change (although with 10,000 miles since the last one, a significant percentage running the ICE, it seems sensible), but 3500 miles is way too soon for another tire rotation.
Click to expand...
That's quite a trip!

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
Argh,
The maintenance minder is supposed to 'simplify' things.
Perhaps your long trip forced this to seem more complicated than it could have been, but it would be nice to be able to visualize the underlying logic.
You can just blindly follow the minder, but as you said, it already makes no sense with respect to tire rotation.

The '2' is the dust and pollen filter so I suppose it does make sense for you to replace that for the first time.
 
Well, today I got part of the answer to my own question. The scenario is this...

7/15/2019, 6800 miles, got 'A01' Maintenance Due Soon (in 4 weeks).
Rotated tires, and cleared the '1'. Notification went away and indicated next service in 3 months when queried.

10/6/2019, 9290 miles, got 'A01' Maintenance Due Soon (in 4 weeks) - Again.
I was disappointed to see that the darned thing thinks the tires need to be rotated again (only 2500 miles since I rotated them and cleared the '1').
I was hoping to see just an 'A0', but it didn't happen.

I think I will change the oil in a few weeks (and do the little inspection), and clear the whole thing at that point.
Going forward, there seems to be little choice but to just ignore whatever tire rotation codes occur and just rotate the tires on a manual fixed schedule like 7500, 15000, 22500, 30,000, etc.

Why would Honda mechanize such a lame maintenance notification system? I have always loved these things before when all they did was notify when it was time to change the oil. Straightforward and simple. This one ??? A perfect example of increased complexity with no value-added (or even negative value-added).
 
As an Fyi, Discount tire is a big chain that will rotate your tires for free, regardless if you bought the tires from them or not.

I don't work for nor do business with them. I'm just passing along what I recently discovered.
 
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