My new Honda CR-V Hybrid has already changed my driving habits for the better, getting me to slow down and focus on efficiency over speed. There’s another habit Honda is trying to get me to change: the habit of having a strict maintenance schedule I follow to keep my car on the road for as long as possible. Why? Because my Honda doesn’t have a maintenance schedule.
Like most car people, I’ve owned many cars in my life, and all of them have recommendations for when/how/why you should change various belts, fluids, and other consumables. My old BMW has over 230k miles on the odometer and the previous owner nicely sent over a spreadsheet with all the work that’s been done to the car in his care so I could make sure to follow the same intervals.
I’m a big fan of this spreadsheet, so my goal last week was to recreate it and leave myself little guides for when I should bring my brand new Honda in for service. The first service, obviously, would be an oil change, and this sent me down a rabbit hole trying to find an oil change recommendation that, it turns out, doesn’t exist.
For the record, there’s the maintenance interval for my old Subaru above.
When Should You Change Your CR-V’s Oil? It Depends…
Conceptually, the idea of an oil change interval is slightly flawed. Few cars are driven exactly the same way, under the same conditions, in the same place. When an automaker says a car needs to have its oil changed at 4,000 miles or 6,000 miles it’s making a best guess based on how most people drive.
As anyone who isn’t perfectly rigid about oil changes knows, you can drive for a long distance past the recommendation and you’ll probably be fine. Hell, I knew someone who had a parent do the oil changes for them and their Honda Pilot and; when that person moved, they just completely forgot to do oil changes! That Pilot was able to go almost another 40,000 miles before the engine seized.
Still, I’m used to there being at least some kind of guideline to follow. My previous car, a then-new 2016 Subaru Forester had a 6,000-mile recommended oil change interval (see above), but I generally tried to get the oil changed at 4,000-5,000 miles.
My first stop when trying to find out when I should change my Honda’s oil was the owner’s manual, assuming I might get a fun little chart with all the maintenance. Instead, I saw this:
Huh? I went to Google, to make sure I was understanding this correctly. Because this wasn’t a mileage number, it was a percentage.
I’m not the only one who has had this concern. Here’s a reddit thread on the topic:
There are numerous threads on the CR-V Owners Club Forum, including this one:
The “Maintenance Minder” is the little digital readout in a submenu on the electronic half of the gauge cluster. Here’s what mine currently shows:
I’m at 80% and have driven a little over 2,400 miles.
Here’s what Honda’s My Garage page says about oil changes:
There is no longer a maintenance schedule in the owner’s manual. The system shows engine oil life as a percentage, which drops over time as the vehicle racks up miles. It starts out at 100% with fresh engine oil, and winds down to 0%, signaling the oil life is over. Your Honda will alert you with a visual warning light to indicate not only when the next service is due, but also what type of service is needed by a series of codes.
That makes sense, I guess? There aren’t specific timelines for most replacements, and the car will just tell you. There are a bunch of codes that you can easily interpret with the guide that comes in the manual. If you see “B5” then it means you need an overall inspection and you need to replace your engine coolant. If you have “A1” it means you need to rotate your tires and change your oil.
I’m generally a fan of having your car give you this kind of info though, in an ideal world, you’d get OBDII codes right on the dash or one of the many in-car screens. Still, this is a helpful tool for people who don’t want to think too much about taking care of their car.
While the manual does not give an oil change recommendation, specifically, there are some general mileages listed for certain conditions like changing in the air cleaner element at 15,000 miles if you live somewhere dusty.
What Does Honda Say About This?
Conveniently, our local Honda PR minder Chris Naughton also just bought an almost identical Honda CR-V Hybrid and we’ve been keeping in touch about how our crossovers are performing. I was tempted to get a FWD model for the fuel economy improvements and that’s what Chris has, so now I can make a reasonable A/B comparison (he is currently kicking my ass).
I asked Chris about the oil thing and here’s what he had to say:
We’d recommend that you follow the guidance of the Maintenance Minder system. It’s explained in the owner’s manual, but in a nutshell, it’s wasteful (financially) and contributing more to environmental degradation by changing the oil too frequently. Modern oils last longer than oils used in the 80’s and 90’s.
Our maintenance minder is smart enough to know how the car is actually used, including RPMs, ambient and engine temperature, etc. to find a conservative spot to recommend an oil change. It errs on the side of engine longevity. You’ll find a % of oil life remaining on the instrument panel. If you’re getting more miles than you’d expect between oil changes, it indicates that your vehicle is seeing light usage, etc. If you experience severe usage conditions, then it will likely recommend a change more often. Ultimately, it will set an oil change reminder at least once per year, regardless of mileage.
The 2.0-liter, naturally aspirated inline-four in my car is only used roughly 40-60% of the time I’m driving, so it’s logical that the oil change intervals would be longer than for my previous vehicle. The motor also acts as a generator when the car is below 45 mph, which is probably 80% of the time I’m driving (and even then it isn’t particularly taxed when in generator mode).
Based on the forums, it sounds like 10,000 miles is when most CR-V owners get the 15% maintenance minder alert. Given how the motor is used in most cars, this makes sense. If someone is on the highway more often, or going over steep grades, I imagine that mileage is going to be lower because that’s when RPMs are higher.
I Have Nothing To Worry About, But I Do Still Worry A Little
Again, this all makes logical sense to me. A vehicle with a lot of sensors will do a better job of knowing when to change my oil than I could, just putting in dates in a spreadsheet. If I’m really worried about what the oil condition is I can always grab the dipstick and look.
In fact, when I get to 15% I’m going to look at the oil and see what it looks like because I’m curious.
Even though I logically know that this is just one less thing I have to think about, some small part of my “lizard brain” (as one CR-V owner put it) would feel better if I had a number, even if that number is wrong.
As Consumer Reports recently pointed out, we’re probably all changing our oil too often for modern cars:
The “every 3,000 miles or every three months” rule is outdated because of advances in both engines and oil. Many automakers have oil-change intervals at 7,500 or even 10,000 miles and six or 12 months.
“Your owner’s manual has more detailed information about your car than any mechanic does,” Ibbotson says. “Don’t get talked into too-often oil changes. Follow the manual and your car’s engine should stay well-lubricated and perform well.
Basically, I will change the oil when it says 15% or I get to 11 months, whichever happens first. The good news is that Honda gives me two years of free regular maintenance, so when I do change the oil I don’t have to pay for it.
Nah, anyone wanting to keep their vehicle for a long time should be more rigorous than manufacturer recommendations, including computer generated. With likely gasoline dilution in that engine, I wouldn’t exceed 5k miles between fresh oil. Also, weak Honda CVTs really need a 20k interval for a drain and refill. These are easy to remember and follow intervals, and oh-so-better to the environment than digging metal out of the earth and forming it into a new long block or transmission, or worse an entirely new vehicle. Environmentally, I’d recommend this for those who lease or otherwise move on quickly as you really do want to help that vehicle last for the next owner(s).
I change the oil every 10K miles (which is usually around 20% oil life) on my ’18 Accord Hybrid. And trans fluid change every 30K miles for the “transmission”.
May I suggest asking the Ouija board.
If that takes too much time, just try the Magic 8 ball.
I’m loving the maintenance schedule on my Tesla. Nothing. Except rotate tires every 7500 miles or so. I also do an alignment once a year.
I’ll take adding a 15 minute $25 oil change twice a year over an extra thousands on the purchase price and insurance with no savings on fuel.
You still have brake fluid to change too.
I’m ok with that if it keeps memory even if you disconnect/change battery.
As a tech who has seen a lot of sludges engines…just change it at 7,500 with a quality full synthetic and you’ll be fine.
I just ignore the maintenance message on my Civic Type R and do them when I feel like I should. I.e. oil change every 3000 miles.
Funny you say that. I follow the maintenance minder on my other Hondas, but I just hit 5,000 miles on the CTR and I’m going to change the oil Friday.
Sorry, UK manual shows 10000km/5000km oil change intervals, which convert to 6k/3k miles. The maths got ahead of me.
If you are not sure, get an oil analysis done when you change it and adjust your intervals based on that. GDI engines tend to get gas in the oil and more than a couple of % gas in the oil requires changing. It will also point out other issues like metals or coolant in the oil.
The Honda 1.5T is notorious for gassing its oil and causing engine damage even when people follow the maintenance minder.
I get oil analysis done on all my engines and our non GDI engines can go about 12k km before the fuel in oil gets to 2% (about a year on one car and 8 months on the other). Our GDI Escape needs its oil changed at about 8k km because it gets the fuel in oil percent up faster.
My diesel truck is at 2 years and 16k km and the oil still tests good, so I haven’t changed it. My KTM motorcycle shows almost no degradation at 8k km, so I’ll extend it to 10k km next time.
The Maintenance Minder system in my Odyssey was really frustrating at first, but it works well for my wife who is the primary driver. She isn’t a car person, but she can easily remember a simple alphanumeric code that pops up, and that has more than balanced out my initial frustration about having to find my Honda decoder ring. Now she can just tell me “A1 popped up” and I know what it means and can get things taken care of.
My other vehicles are too old to have such things, so I still get my “old man shouting at clouds” satisfaction of me being in control, not the car, from them.
Honda UK owners manuals still have a traditional maintenance chart by mileage and time.
For example, the 2024 CRV normal oil change is 6k kilometers, or 3k in severe use.
I recommend downloading the pdf UK manual for reference.
I agree with the oil change interval. My Ford from 2017 Chilton manual says the same thing for the interval, follow the computer. The computer knows how many RPMs, at what interval, the oil has experienced. The computer also counts idling and remote start RPMs, which don’t factor into the old 5k paradigm. The tricky part is that the suspension and break parts all experience miles basically the same. So those intervals may not line up to the oil changes. As long as you use high quality synthetic and a good filter, I think 10k is safe. Break in is different though. I would still dump that oil at 5k at most.
I think this approach is especially necessary when the car miles don’t equal miles on the engine. Not to mention I’m assuming the generator load is different from an oil life perspective than actually driving the wheels.
Especially tricky for me, now that I have a Volt. I’ve done about ~7000 miles, but only a fraction has been on the gasoline engine. Completely relying on the oil change indicator built in.
I had the same minor crisis when I got an 08 Odyssey. Eventually I came to prefer Honda’s way of doing things since it means I don’t have to remember; the car just remembers for me.
“Basically, I will change the oil when it says 15%”
That’s what I did with the 2008 Honda Fit I had. When the maintenance minder got down to 15% oil life, I’d change the oil and filter… even though it said to change the filter every 2nd change. And with the way I drove, that translated into an oil change interval of about 10,000km to 11,000km. Basically I was doing an oil change every 4-5 months.
Now on a hybrid where a percentage of your driving will be done with the engine off, it’s logical to presume that you will go longer distances between oil changes.
The maintenance minder is great as it results in oil being changed when it’s really needed… reducing needless waste.
With my C-Max Energi plug in hybrid, I’m anticipating that I’ll only have to change the oil once a year or every 20,000km… or less freqently because I make full use of the plug in capability.
Our 2003 Buick has an oil life value in the trip computer along with exact coolant temperature, oil pressure and voltage. The water temperature was good for exercising the car since I knew when it was warm enough to burn off condensation. My truck drives so few miles I change the oil based on time
You’d be surprised. I’m not sure about the Buick, but my 2 krout kars have an oil temp gauge and it takes at least 5 miles of driving around my foothills town or 10 miles on the freeway to get the oil temp up to 180-200°. Coolant temp is 200° w/in 2-3 miles.
I like to drive for at least 1/2 hr after the oil temp has hit 200° to burn off condensation & any fuel that has washed past the piston rings.
This is so funny relative to my experience owning cars from the VW group. With those, if you don’t follow the published maintenance schedule, you can say goodbye to a warranty claim on failed engine/water pump/etc parts. They track the intervals at the dealer level. How does Honda get out of warranty claims that would tell them you aren’t changing the oil frequently enough if they are using something that varies from owner to owner and car to car?
If I were dealing with this, I’d say err on the side of conservative. Do 7500 mile changes with full synthetic and you’ll be good to go regardless of what the oil minder light says.
Maybe they can plug in to the car and get the where the car was at in recommending the oil change when it was done and reset?
Honda has been using this shit for almost 20 year, and GM has been doing it even longer.
IMO there isn’t really such a thing as too early of an oil change. I’d think with more frequent oil changes then the engine would be cleaner internally.
The new Hurricane engine in the Ram 1500 doesn’t even have a dipstick and owners are going ape crap over it! It has the same style oil life monitor that you CR-V has but buyers don’t trust it. What happens ten years down the road? Twenty?
As for me, I change my oil every 3,000 miles. I have two timing chains in the engine, and I want those tensioners lubricated with fresh oil as much as possible. (It’s a Ford)
Do what makes you feel comfortable and enjoy the ride.
How about we all just listen to our local dealership service center and get the oil changed every 3,500 miles? Better safe than sorry! /s
I go by 6k or the monitor’s notification, whichever comes first, and check the oil every once in a while to keep an eye on things. It doesn’t use enough oil to worry about it, but some do and I like to know what’s going on, either way. Whatever BS they try to sell, engines are not past the point of not needing to be checked on. If anything, I’d argue that they’ve gone backwards in durability over the last 10 years or so.
The MM on my father’s 2017 Ridgeline said that it needed the rear differential fluid service. Wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but the truck only had ~6,000 miles on it. Granted it was about 3 years old at the time, but it left me wondering exactly how the MM determined the rear diff needed new fluid.
I did the service and now nearing 5 years later and 18,000 more miles, it hasn’t asked for another rear diff fluid service.
My ’17 Pilot notified me to do the same rear diff service at 7 years and ~40,000 miles. I change the transmission fluid before then a 24,000 miles and it was roasted brown and smelling broken down, but MM didn’t pop for that till a little after 40,000 miles.
Maybe I don’t need to see the algorithms, but I’m dangerously curious about some things.
I’m on my second Honda with the maintenance minder. It’s kinda neat but my recommendation is follow it for oil changes and cabin/engine filters, but maybe check with other owners and mechanics for other stuff. For example, shortly after buying my new to me 2016 HR-V back in late 2020, I found several people online saying change the transmission fluid in the CVT every 30,000 miles regardless of what the maintenance minder says. Well, since I was doing a load of preventative maintenance, I decided to take it to my mechanic and have it done. He told me the exact same thing. 30,000 miles unless I’m towing or doing a bunch of driving in the mountains. Then it’s 15,000 miles. I also think it was recommended to do the rear diff fluid every 30,000 miles too.
Also, I think, at least on one of my cars, the maintenance minder would alternate between doing JUST oil and oil and filter. Screw that. New filter every time. Filters are cheap. Also, I’m not driving near as much right now and it’s been right at a year since my last oil change and it’s still showing like 60 or 70%. I’m just gonna go ahead do an oil change now. Previously it always told me to change it about 6,000 miles and 10-11 months.
Solid advice.
We just bought a used 2019 Acura MDX (aka “premium” Honda) and it is my first experience with maintenance minder. Tried so hard to find a maintenance schedule online, to no avail. Feels odd to me, as well. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Just took it in today actually for its first oil change since we purchased it.
It hit 0% oil life remaining (oops!) about 500 miles ago, and that was 5-6000 miles ago. So I’m guessing I’m gonna get about that between my oil changes.