Sorry if this has been covered before but I couldn't find it doing a search so I apologize ahead of time if it has. So I was curious if the Maintenance Minder in our cars is based on the total mileage of the car when things needs to be serviced or are there sensors in our cars to tell us when and what to service when deemed necessary? Is our cars that sophisticated?

I understand that the our cars do take into account for our oil to be changed based on our driving conditions. That I do know. But does it do this for transmission fluid or any fluids for that matter as well? What about when to change spark plugs? Those are the things I'm wondering about because I purchased my car as a CPO with ~50k miles and all the fluids were replaced (at least I hope so). I'm not sure if my spark plugs were replaced but again, I hope it was. Of course I'm sure the dealer also reset the Maintenance Minder but does it just reset the oil? Did they reset the entire thing (is that even possible)?

In other words, I don't want to be driving for another few thousand miles and then all of a sudden I get a Maintenance Minder to replace my transmission fluid and/or spark plugs knowing it was already replaced not long ago. I mean, I doubt my timing belt was replaced since ~50k seems a little early so once that Maintenance Minder pops up, I'm sure that'll be legit. I'm just trying to avoid unnecessary work if it was already done.

 

mileage/time typically

 

Spark plug are due every 100,000 miles (code 4 on maintenance reminder). I don't think the dealership would replace the spark plugs any earlier unless there was a problem related to the plugs. I changed my plugs on my MDX at 75,000 miles because I didn't want to wait until 100K. Acura techs can reset individual codes at anytime. I don't know if they reset my "4" or not when I did my plugs early (probably not since the "4" is also linked to timing belt, water pump and valve clearance adjustment).

Copy of 182 point CPO checklist: https://di-uploads-development.s3.am..._Checklist.pdf

My guess is the "4" code (spark plugs, water pump, timing belt, valve adjustment) is based on mileage while the other codes are based on driving conditions.

 

​​​​​​Wow that was very informative. So basically I just need to hope that my dealership reset each individual code if and when they did service to those particular items. So this poses another question, are we able to reset individual codes? If so, how?

 

Mileage and environmental conditions. Not time. So the time limited things such as annual oil changes (if you don't drive significant miles in a year) are the responsibility of the owner to recognize. As smart as these cars are these days, I've never figured out why they don't take time into account.

 

Go to Customize settings in the Mid display press select/reset button
select Maintenance info and press select/reset
select reset in the setup screen and press select/reset button
Oil life will go to 100% and Maintenance codes will be removed.

 

Is there any way to reset individual codes?