It has to be calibrated for something. It attempts to determine how much 'load' you've placed upon your oil, based on measured driving parameters (how many rpm's, for how long, at what engine and outsdie temps, etc). It then takes this collective info, and essentially, for lack of a better description, determines how far along the sliding scale between 'mild' and 'severe' your driving has been, then it calculates after how many miles you should change your oil based on your position on the scale, then figures out how many miles you've already gone, and assigns a percentage of use left on the oil.

But all of that is based off some predetermined scale of how many miles of 'mild' driving before an oil change, how many miles for 'severe duty', etc. Its those scales that had to be based on dino or synth. One would anly assume they used a dino based scale. If that is true, then the equivalent 'percentage remaining' if using synth would be higher at any given percentage remaining value displayed (percentage remaining as in how much breakdown of the oil has occurred, not how clean the oil is).

Obvioulsy, the best way to determine your oil usage is by actual analysis. Nothing is better at optimizing your oil change intervals. I should hope equally obvious is not everyone is gonna do that. If you're not gonna do that, its a good idea to change your oil, not simply based on mileage, but how much you thrashed the oil since your last change, and adjust based on that. Since that is not real easy to do (remember each rev you drove since last change and determine where on the scale you are now), its really cool that Honda does this for you.

 

There is no exact answer. an oil change is an inexpensive maintanance procedure and many of us do change out our synthetic on advise of the MM. This is not absolutly necessary, but there is a comforting feeling that we are taking very good care of our car. I also use Mobil-1 full syn.

 

I also go by the % remaining on the indicator. Usually try to get it right when it hits 15% (hate seeing that wrench, even though I know there's still a life left, and UOAs prove it). Also if I have a severe load any time during the OCI, such as a track day or canyon run, I change it roughly 10% sooner than usual, rough estimate. Of course YMMV, and the best advice is get a UOA done.

 

You are playing it safe if you change the oil earlier than it needs to be, and the only downside is to your wallet for the cost of the oil & filter (& time). You are also playing it safe if you are getting oil analysis done often. But that said, isn't the whole point of the oil minder to measure stuff like the extra load you placed on the oil due to a track day?

If the minder really works, then shouldn't the warning come on at the same level of oil breakdown if you did a couple track days as if you drove like granny? (the miles to reach that level of oil breakdown of course happening much later for granny). ie; hypothetical example its 15% after only 3.5K miles since you did some track days, vs next time you drive like granny and you get to like 5K miles before it hits 15%, but at that 15%, the oil should be equally 'used up' in both cases.

If you don't trust the minder, and instead go by miles, or analysis results, and maybe some gut feelings of how much beating you gave the oil since last change, that seems fine. But if you do trust the minder, that it truely knows how to compensate for the driving you have done, then wouldn't you always change your oil at the same percentage of use level every time?

If you really trust it, then wouldn't that change point be around 0%?

If you trust that they based the level of acceptable breakdown on the rate that dino oil (specifically, Honda oil) breaks down, and if you believe that synth breaks down slower than dino, then wouldn't you change the oil at some point after it reaches 0%?

I guess what I'm saying is, do you trust the minder or not?

 

I change mine every 5K. As others have stated, nothing to do with dyne or synthetic. Recommended intervals are based on when the manufacturer thinks the filter will start clogging. When this happens a bypass valve opens in the filter and allows fine particulate matter into the oil path. An open bypass valve leads to increased wear of the engine. Did you change the filter when you did the oil?
Utah

P.S. WTF? Are you driving now? It's been snow owing for a week! I'm impressed.

 

Im driving the S on the decent days cause my other car still has the summer nitto tires on it, but when we had those really bad 2or3 storms i just caught a ride with a buddy from work that has a jeep. I dont have much of a weekly commute, work is less then 10mins away and gold's is like 5mins away so not alot of driving really other then that the S is a little red mountain goat though hahaha

On another note the oil reminder is now at 5% so i figure ill change it in another week or 2

 

I'm very curious about this too. I have an '04, so I can't collect any data, but I would be curious if someone tracked their oil life % vs. gallons for fuel consumed, which to me always seemed like a much better metric than miles to track oil life. Sure, I know there's no 'fuel-ometer' gauge, but there's no good reason that they couldn't include estimated cumulative fuel consumption with odometer, other than it not being required by law.