I post this to provide full disclosure on my experiences with my Honda service deparment (Honda of Bellevue). I've endorsed them in the past and I endorse them today, but when I face hurdles in getting the good service I expect with the money I fork over, I am going to share my frustrations with the local S2000 community to ensure/encourage that improvements happen, that such change occurs.

5w-30?
It was time for an oil change and I happened to look at that little sticker they stick on your windshield after every oil change. On the oil part, it read "5w-30" and if I do remember correctly, the S2000 owners manual recommends that we replenish the F20C w/ 10w-30 oil. Now to my best understanding, 5w-30 isn't going make the engine run any differently than 10w-30 oil, especially in Seattle's temperate climate. However, I was bothered by the fact that they were putting in oil that was not recommended by Honda. The manual is there for a reason so why mess with it its recommendations?

Hmmm...
With this figment of contention, I got in contact with the head service manager and asked him why they put in 5w-30 in my car when the manual says use 10w-30. Now please keep in mind that I've dealt with service "conflicts" before on behalf of board members and my main interest in investing my time and asking for the service manager's time is to streamline the S2000 service experience so everything is done efficiently and service is rendered appropriately. It's always good to have people/businesses on your side. Trust is good.

So I ask the simple question and the response I got was that 5w-30 is the bulk oil that they use on "99.9%" of all the Hondas that roll through the Bellevue dealership regardless of what the service manual says. Unless the owner of the car specifically requests 10w-30, they have put 5w-30 in the majority of the cars that come in for an oil change.

This did not make any sense to me
Some questions then popped into my head:

-Honda of Bellevue is laying the onus upon the S2000 owner, the HoB customer to proactively request that Honda service technicians to use 10w-30 and not 5w-30?
-So every S2000 that has gotten their oil changed at Honda of Bellevue where the customer does not request for 10w-30, they replaced w/ 5w-30 oil?

A likely "yes" to all of the above.

Next steps
I never received an apology from the head service guy. I appreciated his honesty when he checked my records and told me straight up that they used the bulk 5w-30 oil. He offered a free oil change and I took it. I got 10w-30 Mobil 1 synthetic with the new Toyo Roki oil filter, but I wasn't happy because what about my S2000 brothers and sisters of Seattle? If I'm going to go on threads here and say Honda of Bellevue is the place to go, then it's in my interest to make sure we all get our ducks in a row.

What is now confirmed is that they will, by default, be going with 10w-30 oil in all S2000s as they should have been doing all along. The new Toyo Roki oil filter will be used and plans are in place to provide every S2000 customer an S2000 checklist sheet listing all the oil and filter information above w/ the additon of the opt-out of car wash check box.

I speculate that the reason for them going bulk 5w-30 is to cut costs as they were realizing that they weren't making a profit off of the $35 oil changes when they had to supply only a small number of cars with 10w-30 oil. Honda of Bellevue predicts that the 10w-30 oil will add ~$3.00 to the price.

Final words
I know a lot of you do your own oil changes, but for guys like me who don't have a nice garage and don't want to spend the time disposing of oil, getting hands dirty, dealership oil changes save time. But then it saves time only if they're doing it right. A lot of the kinks have been straightened out so fear not S2000 bretheren. If you have gotten your oil changed at Honda of Bellevue, you might want to go in and get your service record checked to see if in fact they've been using the correct weight oil in your car. According to the head service guy's logic, you have a greater probability of 5w-30 than 10w-30 since I'm assuming most of you, like me, went in their assuming they used the correct weight and did not know one had to request it.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

 

Good info, Ben, and good job getting them to straighten out their S2000 oil change procedure.

When I don't feel like hassling with changing/disposing my own oil, I just bring a case of Mobil1 10w-30 from Costco and a Mobil1 M-105 filter in to Honda of Bellevue, and have them supply the labor/cleanup/disposal. They charge me about $20? I think (I usually have them do something else at the same time).

Just another option for the garage-less.

 

Wow, that is a bit shocking that they would switch grades of oil and then expect the customer to specifically request that they use the manufacturers recommendations for their particular vehicle. I understand the logic of profit but at the expense of violating the manufacturers service manual is going a bit far.

Having a 5W-30 viscosity, which is thinner than 10W-30 at lower temperatures, could have a serious impact on engine longevity and performance, exactly how or what impact that is, I have no idea. Perhaps burning more oil during warmup than you would with 10W-30.

I guess my question to them would be, if something were to happen to your motor and they come back and say it was related to your engine oil and their service records indicate that they used 5W-30, would they still have a right to deny a warranty claim based on operator error?

Thanks for the info, Ben. It may not just be HoB that is doing this and those that go to other dealers should be inspired to ensure that their service department is doing things the right way.

 

I remember a thread about oil types on another car board, and a petro-engineer gave us a long explanation about why the additives which increase the viscosity range are not that great. I wish I could remember the details now...

Overall, this bites. Thanks for the heads up. I may have to do my oil changes at WHH.

 

Thanks for the corrections Ben! I questioned Hob about the 5w-30 oil in my car the last time I was there but didn't pursue it much further, and was a little hesitant about bringing back to them. So I decided to do my own oil and came across the oil filter changes for the S.

I still haven't done the oil change yet and will probably use HoB since I don't have the time right now. Though, I like the idea of bringing them the oil and filter and paying for their labor. I didn't know they would do that Ted.

 

I did the same thing that Ted did - except for the filter.

Dumbasses that they assigned to my car for the oil change didn't even know where the dipstick was...

 

It ain't rocket science, but we're having to deal with some growing pains here.

Mistakes are being made and I'm just being a squirrel with a nut to share and a bone to pick with these Honda guys at Bellevue (sounds kinda perveted).

I am confident that they have it all figured out by now and if they don't I'll go correct them again on my next oil change. You're totally cool to bring your own oil and use them for their labor.

And not to just point the finger at HoB, but laziness in general is rampant in car service. Like the other day, I was at Auto Styles in Bellevue to get my rear tire plug 'n patched for the third time. Would normally take it to Carnutz, but Joel said they were booked for the day as it was 4PM on a Friday.

Anyways, I was watching the dude balance and install 22" Lowenhardts on Shawn Spring's brand-spanking-new Range Rov (btw, Shawn Springs is not only injury prone, but is an airhead).

The guy was working on my cheapo ASA rims and before he was getting ready to put them back on the car, I asked him non-chalantly "Do you by any chance know what the torque settings are for the car?"

He yells back, "95ft/lbs."

I say to him, "No man, it's at 80."

He says to me, "Oh, so you don't want 95? Ok."

 

It's not just the car service industry, it's the majority of the service industry. There are a few good ones, but they are dying off quickly, killed by the cheap, bulk, no customer service alternatives.

 

Since we all on a car board and all, figured I'd avoid scope creep and focus on car service ya know? marcus, congrats on your power status on s2ki.com.

anyways, if you guys have any more ideas to improve the S2000 service experience, pls feel free to post here and share. i'd be glad to print it out and present it to the HoB guys to show what really should be going down.

 

Other than the service checklist there's not much else you can do unless you bring in your own oil and filter or stand over them the entire time.