Honda Break-in Period

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I'm sure this has been discussed before but I can't find it so I'm just going to ask. I just purchased a 2010 Accord and the manual clearly states there is a break in period for the engine. One of the bullet points in the section states the oil should not be changed until the cars oil monitor says to change it. Over on the Honda forums most people say the monitor does not call for the first oil change until 8-10k miles.

What is everyone's feeling on this? I can't imagine the factory fill is doing anything beneficial after 5k miles...which I think is as long as I am willing to leave it in there.
 
This is true, the OLM will say 8-10k for the first service. I am old school and would do a few quick change outs until 10k are accumulated on the car. Something like first change 2-3000, then at 6-7000.
 
i think the engineers know what they are doing. at least go 5000 miles. if you have normal service, at least 7500. my dad has an accord euro, went 10,000 on factory fill, heavy traffic, runs like a top and clean as a whistle.
 
I let my 09 Accord go until the maint minder said 20%, which was around 7 - 8k The oil looked nasty when I drained it, but I think it was because of the additives.

Vic
 
I would follow whatever is recommended while it is under warranty. Though I'd definitely switch to synthetic oil on the first oil change.

Best,
 
Originally Posted By: beast3300
This is true, the OLM will say 8-10k for the first service. I am old school and would do a few quick change outs until 10k are accumulated on the car. Something like first change 2-3000, then at 6-7000.


I agree totally.
I changed the factory oil in my new 2001 Accord @ 2K with no detrimental effects.
I would probably go to 3 or 4K the on the FF and then again 4 or 5K later and then start whatever OCI schedule that you want. Changing the FF early won't hurt anything, IMO.
 
I wouldn't second guess the people who built, tested, etc this car/engine. If Honda felt the need to go so far as to bullet point, and stress the service of the first oil change I think it would be best to follow Honda's advice.
 
As I recall, the Honda fill is high moly- want to keep it in.

I'd try to secure schaeffer's or another high moly oil to run the next oci, especially if changing prior to the olm.
 
There is nothing wrong with following the instructions in the owners manual. I however, do it a little different. On a new car I will change the oil/filter at 1000 miles. I do so to get rid of the crud and stuff that they assemble the engine with and anything else that might be in the oil. I will change the oil/filter again at 3000 miles and start my normal oci routine.
 
"why do people always second guess the people who DESIGNED THE CAR?"

Well, the people who designed the car had to make recommendations for the entire buying population. The people here at BITOG don't exactly represent that. So when Honda recommends something like, say, replacing the filter every 20,000 miles they are doing that to lower maintenance costs for the general buyer. People here who are generally anal about maintenance certainly won't hurt anything by changing it every oil change.

As stated, the Honda assembly lube is loaded with Moly. If it were mine, I'd keep it at least a few thousand miles but probably not run the whole OLM on it.
 
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You'll hear tons of people say that Honda uses super-duper moly-loaded break-in oil and that if you drain it early you'll ruin the car forever. And there are UOAs that show little or no excessive wear metals after doing that (of course UOAs can't detect LARGE wear particles either).

Personally, I can't stand the thought of break-in [censored] grinding around in an engine for that long, and have never had an engine fail to go 200,000 miles or better after breaking it in with multiple short-interval oil changes before 5000 miles.
 
The bottom line is that it really won't matter whether or not you change the FF early. There have been literally hundreds of thousands of Hondas that have run the FF til 8-10k and they still go 200k miles plus. The vast majority of new Honda buyers simply follow the OM/dealer guidelines.

Fortunately, that also means that if you want to change the FF early there will be no detrimental effects. Many people, myself included, feel better getting that initial fill out of there early. The thought of leftover metallic particles grinding away in the engine is not something I'm willing to live with, so I always dump the FF around 1k miles. It makes me sleep better, so I do it.
 
Originally Posted By: mpvue
why do people always second guess the people who DESIGNED THE CAR?


Because I don't think their goals and objectives as car builders are the same as my goals and objectives as a car owner.

They want your car to last long enough that you will consider buying another.
I want my car to last FOREVER!

They want to convey the message that their cars have very low routine maintenance costs.
I care very little about routine maintenence costs, especially since I do it myself. What I want is very low REPAIR costs, and ZERO major component failures. During the early 90's GM perfected the 100,000 mile spark plug, and the 40,000 mile alternator. Then they moved on to Oil Life Monitor when they should have been contentrating on intake gaskets. Very misplaced priorities in my opinion.

If they tell you to dump your fluids early, they are admitting that junk gets in there durinng assembly and they are not as clean as they would like you to think, and that break in wear does occur.
I have built engines for 25 years and I KNOW BETTER.

A respected local mechanic that spent a long time as a dealer service manager developed his own suggested fluid change intervals, including an early dump of engine oil, trans fluid, diff oil and PS fluid. He tracked new car customers that used his intervals and those that used the reccomended factory intervals, and his data showed that major components like transmissions, PS pumps, and ABS controllers were lasting in some cases four times longer than those using the factory intervals. I had a nice talk with him one day and he showed me his data.

I don't think that Honda will blow up either way, but I know what I would do. The company I work for even does early drains on engines and transmissions on heavy duty trucks where we are dumping 40 quarts of oil instaed of 4.
 
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Plenty of people do the first oil change at 3,000 miles on a Honda, and the engine lasts for ages, so I don't worry about draining the Honda factory fill early.
 
Honda/Acura have tight engine clearances and I would recommend going 6K miles and then change to a high grade syn that has higher levels of moly. Valvoline Maxlife, etc would be fine. After that I would think any syn would be great for any Honda/Acura engine. Good luck.

P.S. I would change out at 6K mostly because I hate the fact of having any metal particles floating around that are not always caught by the oil filter.
 
The new honda brand 0w-20 syn is moly loaded more than anything on the market. So a 2-3K #1 OCI may not be as problematic IF you use the honda brand oil. Recall the filter should be removeing most particulate over .5mil dia and the oil will agglomerate many of the fine particulate so it can be filtered out. So I dont think there should be too much "grinding" going on.
 
My Honda dealer told me last summer to keep the factory fill for a minimum of 5,000 miles, which appears to be their internal guideline. I think 5k miles is the ideal compromise between the two extremes. The heavy moly gets to work its magic, but the oil isn't stressed too long. UOAs of Honda FF show debris is not an issue with new engines.
 
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