Help me understand Time for OCI

[cadfaeltex]

Spent a lot of time yesterday reading on Acurazine about the Acura Maintenance minder and folks over there think very highly of it based on experience and UOA's. Lots of talk about what it considers in deciding when to change the oil - cold starts, ambient temperature, and so forth and so on. Decided just to trust it this go round but that brings up a point.

If the MM considers all this stuff, why do I need to change it at the year mark regardless if I haven't his the mark on the MM?

From reading on here, I understand about condensation etc from short trips. What are the other reasons oil changes go by time in addition to mileage?

TIA,
Tony

 

[amm95]

All that Maintenance Minder is for IS dummys and to show people that the OCI's can go longer than 3000 miles.. It cant tell any specs of how much life that oil has used or has left. also wouldnt be able to reset the thing till u changed the oil and filter and u can do that and not do either.

 

[1999nick]

Because, if you haven't driven enough miles in a year to bring the meter to 0, it might very well have a lot of condensation and fuel in the oil to make it a good idea to change.