Modern Oil Life Monitor

[626LX2.0LATX1998]

New cars have a light that tells you when your oil needs to be changed.

Friend of mine bought a 1994, and told me that his car has it. He says that it illuminates then he changes his oil, usually after 9 months of driving, approximately 25,000km... now he's waiting for it to light up, he said any day now...

I said when that illuminates, you need to change your engine.

 

[Matt_S]

What type of car?

 

[CBDFrontier06]

I thought BMW was about the only one that had that feature back in 1994, but I could be mistaken. If anything, it was probably more of a 'service reminder' than an OLM. My mom's 1985 Accord had one of those.

 

[Schmoe]

Those Accords were some type of mechanical tab that you used your car key to "reset" it when you changed the oil or rotated the tires. I thought that was pretty cool.

 

[Schmoe]

Maybe he's refering to the check engine oil light, which makes him think that he needs to change out the oil, which would give him a full oil level and the light would go off.

 

[XS650]

Quote:

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I thought BMW was about the only one that had that feature back in 1994, but I could be mistaken. If anything, it was probably more of a 'service reminder' than an OLM. My mom's 1985 Accord had one of those.

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My 96 Corvette had it, I have heard that Corvette had it as far back as 1989. It was just a change oil idiot light that the driver saw, but it was based on some actual operational data. Oil Temp and total engine revs in the early versions according to one pretty good souce.

 

[JHZR2]

Quote:

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I thought BMW was about the only one that had that feature back in 1994, but I could be mistaken. If anything, it was probably more of a 'service reminder' than an OLM. My mom's 1985 Accord had one of those.

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BMWs had them back into the early 80's as an actual (though simple) computer that essentially counted revolutions of the engine and somehow correlated it with number of starts.

My father's 94 toyota and fiancee's 94 acura both have mileage counter "oil life computers" that turn on every 7500 miles.

JMH

 

[55Test]

The 1990 Olds Ciera I bought last year had an in car computer which actually measured oil life in percentage. You'd change your oil, reset the computer then it would count down from 100% til it got to I think 10%, where the screen would say something like 'CHANGE OIL SOON' and when it got to 0% it would say 'CHANGE OIL NOW' The thing somehow worked off the car's ECU. It also displayed instanteneous(sp?) fuel economy, average fuel economy, coolant temp, engine speed, current speed, average speed, etc. Pretty sophisicated for GM, and especially in 1990. I removed the display unit when I junked the car in case I ever get another Ciera, if I did I'd hook it up to the car.

 

[9c1]

1994 Chevrolet Caprice/Impala has a "change oil" light.

 

[oilyriser]

Many people believe the oil light works exactly the same as the low fuel light.