I have 1,600 miles on my new Acura TSX. The car is great but the computer is saying I have 50% oil life left. I do a lot of short rides. 5 miles to an from the train station 5 days a week. Is this normal? The dealer said 10,000 miles the info says 5,000 for city but this is going tto be about 3,200 miles.

 

So how do you know it's burning oil?
Do you see blue smoke coming out of the exhaust?

 

50% oil life means that with your driving conditions, you are halfway to your 1st oil change. It doesn't mean that half of your oil has been consumed

 

And just for reference, my first oil change came at 3786 miles because my driving was largely short distance and included a lot of starts.

The maintenance minder considers a variety of factors so it's simply your driving demands that are causing the oil life to fall this quickly.

 

I've got near 1500 miles and the minder thing says 80% oil life. I guess I'm doing alright. That's good to know.

 

I'm at 1190 miles with 70% left. It's been sitting at 70% for a long time, so it must be a pretty big range/interval.

I only do city driving now

I'm still on the oil from the factory...still debating on whether I should go in for an oil change now, or wait until the maintenance light

 

The oil life button measures the pH balance of the oil oas well as how many hours the engine has been running and the conditions it has been driven in. The percentage almost never matches with what the book will say. I used to have customers call me about it all the time when I worked at a Honda dealership. They were always panicked. But, just pay attention to the oil life. Your car knows when it needs to have the oil changed.

 

Well you are right, my terminology was wrong. I'm not burning oil. The oil guage on the dash is reading 50% life at 1,600 miles. I always changed my oil on all previos cars at 3,500 mi. This is not a problem. My concern was that if the Acura dealer say's change the oil at 10,000 mi. why am I so far from that. I know that living in the city I do a lot of short rides, and I do city driving, this is I'm sure the reason. I just wanted to see if others with the Acura TSX are also having a short oil life.

 

Your dealer is referencing the old schedule table that was given as a general reference for the 04 and 05 cars. The 06 cars rely on the maintenance minder to determine what needs to be done so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just follow its recommendations and you'll be fine.

 

No it does not. The OLM calculates oil life based upon a computer algorithm. There is no oil condition sensor at all. VWs in Europe are the only vehicles that I know of, that have an actual oil condition sensor.

 

So is it based on total engine revolutions or some combination of total revolutions and average RPM?

 

Variety of factors...