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Turbo311
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Just bought a new Si and they said to wait at least 3000 miles before my first oil change. That there is a new break in oil in the car that collects metal shavings and protects the seals better during the break in time. Is this true? How long should I really wait?
And if I do synthetic from then on do I use the stock oil filter or a high performance one to get the long mileage between changes? I keep reading different things about how long you can really go on synthetic. They say that i the desert heat and with all the dirt its about half as long...?
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Nakamichi
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Change to synthetic on your first scheduled oil change. You base this upon the mileage/time recommended in your manual. Though it's common to hear you can go on extended interval oil changes when using synthetic, many brands recommends changes that follow the manufacturer's recommendation.
There are fluids that offers “guaranteed” protection under extended change intervals. Mobil1 Extended Performance offers protection up to 15,000. Amsoil Series 2000 Synthetic Motor Oil offers protection 17,500 miles under severe conditions and 35,000 under normal. And many more.
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Turbo311
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wow so are there filters to match that kind of mileage or do you have to change the filter at the halfway point? Id like to trust the oil company's high milage guarantee, but should you only do that if you're off powertrain warranty? It just seems silly to run sythetic if you're doing changes every 3-5k miles, unless you take your car to the track every weekend which I don't (not yet anyway).
I think I may just stick with the oil honda gives me on regular changes. I have no need for anything better really. Man this just brings on too many debates.
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i_go_FAST
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Yeah they have synthetic oil filters made to filter more oil and last longer periods of time. The shop I work at actually requires a synthetic Mobil 1 filter if you choose to use the Extended Performance oil.
Personally, I use Castrol Syntec with a synthetic filter and i change my oil around every 2,900-3,000 miles even though Castrol says it can last up to 6 months/6,000 miles
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whip
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IMO, regular oil is fine unless you are racing, using forced induction, or running at redline all day. Your engine will still last 300,000 miles and beyond if properly maintained.
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niko
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Turbo311 wrote:
I think I may just stick with the oil honda gives me on regular changes.
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Unless something has changed, don't think that you are getting any high quality oil at the dealer. The only thing a dealer has to follow when changing your oil is that they need to use Honda oil filters. The oil is coming from probably the cheapest crud they could get. This is why I tell everyone to learn to change your own oil. This way you know what you are putting in and know that the job is being done correctly.
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Mechanic
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niko wrote:Turbo311 wrote:
I think I may just stick with the oil honda gives me on regular changes. |
Unless something has changed, don't think that you are getting any high quality oil at the dealer. The only thing a dealer has to follow when changing your oil is that they need to use Honda oil filters. The oil is coming from probably the cheapest crud they could get. This is why I tell everyone to learn to change your own oil. This way you know what you are putting in and know that the job is being done correctly.
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Turbo311: First, welcome to the board. Second, you have good instincts regarding your new Si's maintenance needs. If you follow the recommendations in your owner's manual and don't beat on your car, it will give you years of reliable service.
As you will soon discover, there are lots of oil & oil-filter threads on this board going back over several years, and no shortage of recommendations as to how often you should change your oil, filter, etc. You'll soon learn to separate the noise from the recommendations worth following. In this regard, I'm always amazed that people buy a Honda because they trust the company, its engineers and the people who put it together, but flail away on the dealerships and the people who work there, often accusing them of incompetence or outright fraud. (The writer's comment above about selling customers "the cheapest crud" is an example.) Suffice it to say that's not been my experience.
WRT the motor oil in your car now, it's non-synthetic Exxon-Mobil 5w-30. The factory fill has an additive package. And, if you go into your dealership's parts dept and ask for a quart of "Honda" motor oil, you will find that the "Honda" motor oil sold by the quart is produced and packaged for Honda in the U.S. by Exxon-Mobil. That may or may not be what your particular service dept uses. Dealerships are not required to buy "Honda" motor oil, so you'll have to ask what they use. Here again, there's a lot of noise on the boards about the "best" motor oil and how often you "must" change it, but all of the majors (e.g., Exxon-Mobil -- both conventional and synthetic -- Castrol, Valvoline, Shell, Pennzoil) are fine. Believe it or not, no one is out to ruin your car or compromise its service life by selling you "crud." As for how often you "must" change your oil (or any fluids in your car), the same smart guys who designed your car wrote the service recommendations in your owner's manual. Were I you, I'd start there.
Enjoy your new Si. You bought a neat Honda.
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ToxxinOnTegSE
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Turbo311 wrote:
Just bought a new Si and they said to wait at least 3000 miles before my first oil change. That there is a new break in oil in the car that collects metal shavings and protects the seals better during the break in time. Is this true? How long should I really wait?
And if I do synthetic from then on do I use the stock oil filter or a high performance one to get the long mileage between changes? I keep reading different things about how long you can really go on synthetic. They say that i the desert heat and with all the dirt its about half as long...?
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Take it from me, I am a bit more qualified to comment since I have a 2006 model and recently went through my first 3 oil changes and am pondering going full synthetic at 20k.
Leave your break-in oil till the MMS says 0%. Another words, leave the break-in oil as long as you can not 3000 miles, Personally, I did my first oil change at 5050 miles since the light came on at 15% around 4700 but I had my mind set on waiting till *atleast* 5000 miles. Since it was in the middle of a hot summer, I did it but I regret not waiting till my MMS went down to 0% (like I said, I did it at 15% *and* 5000 miles).
I would wait one oil change(10k) before moving to anything synthetic and what I moved to which was a synthetic blend. Again, I wanted to go blend first because oil companies are not using Group IVs anymore in their "full-synthetic" namely, Mobil and Pennzoil Platinum used to have Group IV stocks in their "fulls" but now only Group III and that is the realm of the Synthetic-Blends so that is where things stand as far as Exxon-Mobil and Pennzoil are concerned. Then there is the Castrol and Motor-craft camps which I kind of wrote-off for a couple of reasons.
1. Honda's are known to like Mobil oils. This is from peeps I have met who used to own Hondas who told me, not just me. It's mostly from those who have owned Civics in the mid 90s who told me but knowledgable cats. Now not that this is enough reason to choose Mobil but it helps if you h ave some personal information other then from yourself.
2. As mentioned above, the factory-fill is Exxon-Mobil so during break-in period. (which for me was roughly 1 mile to 20,000 miles), I wanted to stick to as close as the Mobil break-in as possible and so I used the Mobil DriveClean 5000 5w20 for my first oil change since it is the same as the break-in oil but with different badging and better price(2.20/qt). I immediately "felt" my car run quieter with bump in performance. When I jumped to DC75k on #2, I "felt" cooler, quieter and more performance. When I say cooler, I mean my blew cool air for the first time and later, with the right gas, I started to beat cars I never woulda challenged before like Titan V8s, BMW 3 series, Lexus GS series, Mustang modified V6s, V8 as well as smaller and much easier prey like for example, Solara V6s, fart-can Civics(modified) and and the-likes.
3. Just follow the MMS and you can't go wrong since it knows how hot your car ran *and* how many revolutions, it can take into account the synthetic and your MMS will automatically be longer. For example, on my current 2nd OCI of DC75k, my MMS is at 50% and I have allready drove almost 3900 miles! Now the ambient temp has been much lower then it was in the summer but it's also cuz my oil is keeping thing cooler so my MMS has scaled back a lot! All my previous MMS has been at 15% at around 4800 miles!
Use what you want but these new Mobil DC oils are as good as synthetics and even the regular 5w20 cst at 100 is competitive with synthetics but you cant go wrong with MotorCraft either. For you Honda, I would go with one or the other.
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Ruking
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The part about collecting metal shavings might have been true for cars 30-50 years ago. It is not true anymore and for you specific car is almost certainly not true, unless you have a manufacturing defect or fault.
So the first order of business is to RTFM. Leave the oem fill in as directed. In my case that was at a Honda recommended 10,000 mile OCI. Then use the oil that conforms to the Honda specifications such as 5w20 as Honda specifies, 5w30 if that is what is specified for the SI. Since Honda's vendor for oil is indeed Exxon Mobil, it is easy to use that product LINE. Me, I went to Mobil One 0w20,5w20, after the oem fill. It runs like the proverbial top. Stock oil filters are again changed at the Honda recommendation. Again in my case that is every other oil change of 10,000 or specifically AT 20,000 miles.
SI (aka sand) detected in the oil analysis comes in by way of an air filter that either has an air leak or indeed you run it often in sand storms. I would HIGHLY recommend staying with the oem or equivalent air filter. DO NOT use aftermarket filters, and especially with mineral oil cotton media. They all tell you up front they let in more air which may or may not be true or may or may not be needed but indeed it does let in more grit.
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ToxxinOnTegSE
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Ruking wrote:
The part about collecting metal shavings might have been true for cars 30-50 years ago. It is not true anymore and for you specific car is almost certainly not true, unless you have a manufacturing defect or fault.
So the first order of business is to RTFM. Leave the oem fill in as directed. In my case that was at a Honda recommended 10,000 mile OCI. Then use the oil that conforms to the Honda specifications such as 5w20 as Honda specifies, 5w30 if that is what is specified for the SI. Since Honda's vendor for oil is indeed Exxon Mobil, it is easy to use that product LINE. Me, I went to Mobil One 0w20,5w20, after the oem fill. It runs like the proverbial top. Stock oil filters are again changed at the Honda recommendation. Again in my case that is every other oil change of 10,000 or specifically AT 20,000 miles.
SI (aka sand) detected in the oil analysis comes in by way of an air filter that either has an air leak or indeed you run it often in sand storms. I would HIGHLY recommend staying with the oem or equivalent air filter. DO NOT use aftermarket filters, and especially with mineral oil cotton media. They all tell you up front they let in more air which may or may not be true or may or may not be needed but indeed it does let in more grit.
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Speakjing of 10,000 miles, isnt the ztock air filter supposed to be replaced by then as well if not earlier. I know for mine, at 10k, I hosed off my air filter at the shop during my first OCI at 10k of Mobil Clean 75k and then at around 18k, I just replaced it cuz it was so dirty. I did try to hose it off but the darker black shades were not able to be removed and it was stained so badly from the soil. I even had to blow off the housing cuz dirt was in *it*. But realfully gained a few hp after that cuz my car revved even better and faster.
Btw, I was wondering..I went by the local brand-spanking new Advance Autoparts this afternoon and they indeed had the Pennzoil Platinum on sale for Buy one Get one free but each individual quart costs nearly 6 bucks!! WOW. When I did the math, it turned out to be about 3 bucks a quart which isn't bad for a Group III full synthetic but I don't know if I can committ to those big prices *after* the change from a blend to a "full". Once you go black, and I mean Pitch Black, you can proverbially never go back.
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Ruking
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ToxxinOnTegSE wrote:
...
Speakjing of 10,000 miles, isnt the ztock air filter supposed to be replaced by then as well if not earlier. I know for mine, at 10k, I hosed off my air filter at the shop during my first OCI at 10k of Mobil Clean 75k and then at around 18k, I just replaced it cuz it was so dirty. I did try to hose it off but the darker black shades were not able to be removed and it was stained so badly from the soil. I even had to blow off the housing cuz dirt was in *it*. But realfully gained a few hp after that cuz my car revved even better and faster.
Btw, I was wondering..I went by the local brand-spanking new Advance Autoparts this afternoon and they indeed had the Pennzoil Platinum on sale for Buy one Get one free but each individual quart costs nearly 6 bucks!! WOW. When I did the math, it turned out to be about 3 bucks a quart which isn't bad for a Group III full synthetic but I don't know if I can committ to those big prices *after* the change from a blend to a "full". Once you go black, and I mean Pitch Black, you can proverbially never go back.
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Actually what I posted about MY Honda oil filter frequency cycle (every other oil change, or 20,000 miles) etc. is said in three places 1. the owners manual 2. the Honda web site 3. the shop manual (yes, I have that 100 or so dollar "phone book") On the air filter this is counter intuitive, BUT in the life cycle of the air filter (again check the owners manual/shop manual for how many miles) the air filter actually FILTERS better with a certain amount of dust etc. EVERY time you unseat and reseat the air filter seals, YOU create more possibility of air leaks. So again counter intuitively when you change the new one do not mess with it, hopefully for previously explained obvious reasons.
Again, if and when the oil you have in mind meets the Honda specifications, what is wrong with the lowest price per quartas per your example!!?
So for example I got the ExxonMobil 5w20 SUPERFLO (meets my Honda years' specifications) for after rebate app less than .75 cents per quart if I remember correctly. The per mile lubricated cost over 10,000 miles is simply hard to beat !(.000195 per mile driven)!!
A big however IS the 1-3 mpg fuel mileage savings for me over 10,000 miles/20,000 miles with synthetic. I also change it up to 4/5 /6/times LESS. Again for a counter intuitive reason the higher up front cost of the oil actually saves money. I measured this difference of 1-3 mpg over 10,000 miles. The over all average is actually 2 mpg.
Also color of the oil is NOT a reliable measure of TBN remaiing and other measures. Actual oil analysis IS. The problem with that of course is two fold 1 oil analysis is 20-40 dollars 2 percentage wise almost NOBODY does it.
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ToxxinOnTegSE
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Ruking wrote:
ToxxinOnTegSE wrote:
...
Speakjing of 10,000 miles, isnt the ztock air filter supposed to be replaced by then as well if not earlier. I know for mine, at 10k, I hosed off my air filter at the shop during my first OCI at 10k of Mobil Clean 75k and then at around 18k, I just replaced it cuz it was so dirty. I did try to hose it off but the darker black shades were not able to be removed and it was stained so badly from the soil. I even had to blow off the housing cuz dirt was in *it*. But realfully gained a few hp after that cuz my car revved even better and faster.
Btw, I was wondering..I went by the local brand-spanking new Advance Autoparts this afternoon and they indeed had the Pennzoil Platinum on sale for Buy one Get one free but each individual quart costs nearly 6 bucks!! WOW. When I did the math, it turned out to be about 3 bucks a quart which isn't bad for a Group III full synthetic but I don't know if I can committ to those big prices *after* the change from a blend to a "full". Once you go black, and I mean Pitch Black, you can proverbially never go back.
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Actually what I posted about MY Honda oil filter frequency cycle (every other oil change, or 20,000 miles) etc. is said in three places 1. the owners manual 2. the Honda web site 3. the shop manual (yes, I have that 100 or so dollar "phone book") On the air filter this is counter intuitive, BUT in the life cycle of the air filter (again check the owners manual/shop manual for how many miles) the air filter actually FILTERS better with a certain amount of dust etc. EVERY time you unseat and reseat the air filter seals, YOU create more possibility of air leaks. So again counter intuitively when you change the new one do not mess with it, hopefully for previously explained obvious reasons.
Again, if and when the oil you have in mind meets the Honda specifications, what is wrong with the lowest price per quartas per your example!!?
So for example I got the ExxonMobil 5w20 SUPERFLO (meets my Honda years' specifications) for after rebate app less than .75 cents per quart if I remember correctly. The per mile lubricated cost over 10,000 miles is simply hard to beat !(.000195 per mile driven)!!
A big however IS the 1-3 mpg fuel mileage savings for me over 10,000 miles/20,000 miles with synthetic. I also change it up to 4/5 /6/times LESS. Again for a counter intuitive reason the higher up front cost of the oil actually saves money. I measured this difference of 1-3 mpg over 10,000 miles. The over all average is actually 2 mpg.
Also color of the oil is NOT a reliable measure of TBN remaiing and other measures. Actual oil analysis IS. The problem with that of course is two fold 1 oil analysis is 20-40 dollars 2 percentage wise almost NOBODY does it.
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We're going against the grain a bit on this one. You replace the air filter because you can clean it only so much and you're not gonna great air gaps unless you are halfhazardly doing it and you break, bend , twist or otherwise alter the engineered equipment. Now on the oil change, my notion was why not get the exact oil speced from the factory, minus a bit of moly perhaps and have yourself a beast *while* it breaks in so at 20k, you can have wiggle rooom to go "un-orthodox" as grab some Full-Synthetic at a special price like the buy one get one free?? That's way you can buy 4 at 3 bucks a piece which would make it 3+3+3+3=12 and pick up an extra qt at Wally-mark for 4.00 bucks giving you a grand total of 12+4=16 bucks for full synthetic oil! Wow Take that mobil 1!! oh and plus the filter and if you can do it yourself, you get a full synthetic oul change (aka a massage for your engine) for less then 25 bucks!
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Ruking
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I am not real sure what you mean.
I have 5 cars so conceiveably I could have to do 20 oil and filter changes and such per year vs the 5 per year I do now. So I am letting the materials do the job they are supposed to.
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Mechanic
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Oil Threads! What would VTEC.net be without four or five oil threads going simultaneously?
Did anyone notice we lost Turbo311 along the way?
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Ruking
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Not sure how or why it is going against the grain, especially if it is what the manual says to do. I could write this in checklist form, but it assumes your read is the same as mine, of those three pieces of data.
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