So my car is creeping up on the big 30,000 mark, and I was wondering if this is when I should change from 5w20 to 5w30. Thought I read somewhere that one should go to the heavier weight once you get to 30K. Yes or no?

I was also wondering what you fellow Accord enthusiast feel about leaving plain ol' Castrol 5w20 oil in for 5K? I do about 60% highway and 40% city driving, sometimes less city. Right now the computer is telling me the motor oil is at 50% with almost 5K on the oil. What say you?

One last thing: If I swithc to Mobil One synthetic, can I go about 7K between oil changes?

Any information will be much appreaciated!

NEW QUESTION (10-14-11)

Okay, so is the consensus that one doesn't need to "bump up" the viscosity of a car's oil once it hits 80,000 to 100,000 miles? The reason I am asking this is due to the Autozone guy stating that he is currently attending some automotive school where he was told that after hitting 80,000 miles one should go with a heavier oil. For example, in my car that would be 10W-20, not the current 5W-20 I am using. We were specifically talking about my daughter's Jetta GL when having this discussion, as I was buying stuff for an oil change. Her car requires 5W-30 and he was recommending 10W-30 due to the car having 140,000 miles.

What say you guys?

 

30k miles is nothing. I'd continue using 5w-20. Don't change unless you see a particular reason like low pressure when its really hot.

My Accord didn't have the oil-life calculation yet in 2003, but the owner's manual said 10k miles for the oil. My driving mix was probably more country roads & highway, less actual city.

I've used Castrol GTX for a long time, & had a good oil analysis done on my 2003 Accord with GTX 5w-20 (57,630 miles on the car & 7431 on the oil). Mine was a 5-speed, & I already mentioned the different driving mix. The oil still had a TBN of 1.8, so I could left it in a little longer.

I've also had an analysis done on the 07 Civic when the oil monitor said 10%. That oil (GTX 5w-20) had a TBN of 3.0 so it gave me the confidence to trust the Honda oil-life monitor for that particular oil.

I use synthetic oil in my turbo cars (the Saabs) but not the N/A Hondas. If you use synthetic for extended oil intervals, you should probably get analysis done to support it.

 

I currently own 3 Hondas:

1- 2004 Honda Element - 138,000 miles
2- 2003 Honda Element - 56,000 miles (my show car)
3- 1995 Honda Accord - 223,000 miles

My oldest son owns 1 Honda:

1- 1991 Honda Civic - 133,000 miles

My youngest son owns 1 Honda:

1- 1992 Honda Accord - 330,000 miles

My wife's father owns 1 Honda:

1- 1990 Honda Accord - almost 400,000 miles

That said, I know of no reason to switch from the manufacturer's spec for oil viscosity. The engine builders at Honda make some of the best most dependable engines in vehicles today. Why would you want to put a thicker oil in it.

Most newer cars today that call for the 5w-20 oil use that because they are designed with tighter tolerances and the thicker oil does not lubricate like it should.

Now switching to synthetic is a whole other story. Synthetic is way better for your engine than dyno squeezing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HondaAficionado

If I swithc to Mobil One synthetic, can I go about 7K between oil changes?

I am not sure about the recommended oil change interval on the 2006 Accord.

I can tell you that my 1995 Accord's recommended interval is 7500 miles and that is with using conventional motor oil.

Both of my Element's intervals are 10,000 miles on conventional motor oil.

So, I highly doubt your 2006 Accord is anything other than 7500 miles, or 10,000 miles for conventional oil. Switch to synthetics and you could go longer.

I would recommend getting your oil tested by a lab like Blackstone Labs

I have not used them yet. (my oil kit is on the way to me now) but they look like a great place to find out what is going on inside your engine and after they test the oil you can tell by how much additives are left in the oil how much farther you can go between oil changes.

 

Doh, Jim you got your response in while I was typing mine and I got sidetracked looking at other stuff on the internet.

 

I agree with the above. I use synthetic blend because it deosn't cost too much. I change mine every 5000 Miles or 4 months, which is probably early, but it helps me sleep better at night. It currently has approx 156,000 miles. I use Valvoline Maxlife which is only about $15 for a 5 quart jug at walmart. I use Purolator filters.
My Accord actually calls for 5w30. I would use whatever oil the owner's manual tells you to use. Using different might screw up the warranty.

If you really want to learn a lot about oil, go to bobistheoilguy.com and look around. Those guys are crazy about oil.

 

10,000 mile intervals? I have to admit that I missed that on my users manual. So just to make sure, it's okay to go that long between oil changes? For the past 120,000 miles I've been going with 5,000 mile intervals and after I crossed 100K, I dropped it to 4K intervals.

 

JimBlake: Where did you get your oil tested? And what does TBN mean?

BigTzAccord: I was told by the very, very smart Autozone guy () that one should switch to 5w30 after 30K, because the car is basically "looser/broken in" at this point and would benefit from running an oil that "isn't so thin." Soooo, just thought I'd check in with you guys. But, you're saying that one should pretty much NEVER deviate from using 5w20 if that is what the manufacturer specs for the car? Regarding the oil change intervals, currently my car's computer is saying that the oil is at 50% with about 5K on it, so, I guess, I can see it going to 7,500 without it being an issue. So, I see your point about the oil change intervals. But it seems that having the oil tested would be nice in order to verify that the oil is good out to that interval.

00AccordLX5sp: Seems like you can go longer between oil changes based on what the two posters above has stated.

 

www.blackstone-labs.com is where I got the analysis. I imagine there's other competing places, too.

TBN = total base number = kinda sorta related to acid/base balance. You don't want your oil becoming acidic.
Read about it here:
http://www.blackstone-labs.com/do_i_need_a_tbn_.html

TBN starts out at some number which you can find by analyzing "virgin" oil. Or look around bobistheoilguy for somebody who has already done virgin analysis on your favorite flavor of oil.

TBN gradually gets smaller as the additive is "used up". You'd like to change your oil when the TBN gets down close to zero, but you don't want to cut it too close.

TBN isn't the only reason to change oil. If the analysis shows other impurities building up, or viscosity changing out-of-spec, or ???

Sounds like the AZ guy is stuck in the '60s. If the bearing clearances in your engine have worn & become bigger, the CORRECT way to deal with that is rebuilding. But using a heavier oil is cheap & painless. I wouldn't switch to heavier oil, unless I actually measure problems with oil pressure.

There's more than one philosophy about oil weight. 5w-30 may just give better protection in really hot climates. Also, some people have said that Honda calls for 5w-30 elsewhere in the world where there isn't any average fuel-economy rules. I don't know if that's true, but I'm still using 5w-20.

If I really wanted to extend oil intervals, I'd probably get analysis a couple times (when I change oil) to establish some confidence in the engine's overall health & MY OWN driving habits. For the price of analysis, you can simply change more often. If you have an oil-life monitor (2006+??) all the better. It will keep track of all the driving-habits in detail.

Yeah, Jon can probably go longer, but it's all about personal comfort level. His 2000 doesn't have the monitor, so if his mixture of country/city/highway is not very consistant he doesn't have the computer to account for that.

 

Hmm, so it sounds like you either get the oil analysis to see how exact my car's computer is or just simply pick a conservative oil change maintenance schedule.

I think I'm going to have the oil analysis done just to see how good the maintenance minder on my 2006 SE is.

As always, thanks Jim!

 

That's exactly what I did on the 07 Civic. Seems that for Castrol GTX, the maintenance minder is a bit conservative. I could start using cheaper oil, but I don't wanna do that. So I'll just have the confidence that I could actually let the minder go all the way down to zero.

Without the oil monitor, you can use analysis to justify leaving the oil in for longer milage. But you have to be sure that your driving habits (city/country/highway/etc) are always consistent. The maintenance minder accounts for all those things so you don't have to worry about changing the mix.

Occasional oil analysis can tell you about the engine's general health. Or warn you of impending doom, for example high levels of certain metals can warn you about bearings chewing themselves to bits.

Back to the original question about using heavier oil... When I sold our 1989 Saab with 220,000 miles, I was still using the oil weight that the book called for. Don't mess with success unless you actually measure something that tells you to change.