i was wondering, 105,000 for spark plugs, 10 years for coolant, 7500 for oil changes? i know there are recommendations, but does anyone use these numbers in real life? your experience please.

I have used 3500 for oil changes and the 15,000 for trans and rear end fluids. only 20,000 on the car now.

 

Follow the "Severe" schedule in the manual and you won't go wrong. Cuts most of the "normal" intervals in half, e.g., oil changes every 3750. With my civic I always got it serviced somewhere in between normal and severe and never had a day of trouble in 5 years. I am more disciplined about sticking to the severe schedule in the S, of course. It's a Honda - if you change the oil and replace the timing belt, it'll run forever.

 

Except...there is no timing belt!

I'm changing oil at 1 year or 7500 miles, whichever comes first. Of course, I'm running Mobil 1 and store my car for 1/2 the year.

 

depends how you drive. i usually follow the severe schedule. but i will change oil sooner if i know in the past couple hundred miles i have done some serious vtec'in. i just found out to swap the diff fluid(i believe) pretty much right away as it is suspect fluid in there, not as good as le-607 and its counterparts. damn, i left mine in for like 15,000 miles

 

You should be following the "normal" service schedule unless your daily driving truly qualifies for "severe" duty (they probably describe it in the manual). On all of my Honda/Subaru cars for about the last 20 years, I have gone with the 7,500-10,000 mile oil change intervals recommended in the manual for normal service, and have never had engine problems. I mean never. As far as I am concerned, the 3,000 mile oil change myth is a lame marketing scheme to sell more oil (unfortunately it works). You only need to change oil that frequently if you seriously abuse the engine with frequent short trips, dusty environments, severe temperature extremes, etc... If in doubt, have an oil analysis done next time you change your oil, it will tell the truth (in fact, that's the only absolute truth).

Craig

 

7500 should be fine with any synthetic, although I'd be leary with a conventional oil for that long. The 3000-mile interval is from quite a long time ago and from what I understand, doesn't apply to modern engines and oils. The oil journals on this forum should provide more information that you want.

 

crap! I use to change mine every 2500 miles with Mob. one!

 

yeah 3000 miles is a waste on any oil.

personally, I go 5000-7500 miles between changes on conventional oil (i currently use Havoline GF4)

When I was on synthetic, I was going 10,000 miles. And in fact, I had UOA's done that said I could have gone even further, and my oil was doing its job just fine.

 

I'm with the man from the badger state, 5-7K on conventional, 10K on synthetic. Any more than that is a waste of time and money IMHO. In the olden days (10-15 years ago) your oil looked dirty after 3-4K, with the new engines the oil is the same color as new oil after 7K, I think it's amazing what's been done with better machining and tighter tolerances.