SayItAintTom

This has to do with oil changing. I drive an 05 TL, every day. The screen tells me my oil life is fine (50%) ..but ive put over 6000km on it in less than 3 months, do you guys obey your car when it advices you for oil change or do you change it earlier?

Im kinda itching to change it since I do push it pretty hard every now and then.. like 180km/h or higher or is the car fine and can handle the beating?

polobunny

Yes I obey. Is it synthetic or dino oil?

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

like dont waste your money bruh.

like, wait till the oil counter gets to zero

SayItAintTom

I just got the car earlier this year and i changed it immediately and i used synthetic. I plan to always use synthetic only, around what % do you change your oil? 10%? 20%?

Im just shocked I put that much mileage on it and it's only at 50%

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

4000 miles isnt a lot.
you're thinking of the olden days where people were taught to change oil every 3000 miles...
those days are long over.

follow the oil life indicator.

polobunny

It warns you at 15% if I recall correctly. After which I just took an appointment because I didn't have time to do it myself and it was getting cold. Watched the technician do everything like a hawk.

aznboi2424

iTrader: (10)

The oil life monitor in this car is very smart and complicated. It's not an idiot light where it's based solely on mileage. It calculates things like time, mileage and how the car is driven. It knows if you've driven the car hard and will count down the percentage quicker then if your granny drove it.

TacoBello

yup, the way you drive will change the oil life, and the car is smart enough to detect that. Clearly you granny drive your car too much

Start mashing the throttle more if you want to see the indicator change faster. I'm going to assume most of your 6000km has been highway driving, yes? I think my oil change interval is roughly about 8000km on my TL, but I do drive my car hard.

Keep in mind, if the oil life indicator wasn't very accurate, Acura would have a fairly large sized class action lawsuit against them.

ggesq

iTrader: (1)

As others have pointed out, follow the MID. However, the MID cannot distinguish between synthetic vs dino oil. Just FYI.

NBP04TL4ME

I believe my oil life gets down to about 15% around 7000 miles give or take.

Steven Bell

iTrader: (2)

It's obviously not going to hurt to change it, but save your money.

SayItAintTom

Thank you sooooooo much to all who responded. Completely cured my paranoia with your reassured responses.

Im a first timer here, amazing response time too. I couldnt be happier, looking forward to being a regular~

Loving the tl so far, the only thing that keeps me up at night is wondering if switching to the tls is worth the upgrade... I heard it burns more gas though and I cant even make it through a week with one tank as it is.. I drive over 100km a day.. but at the same time every time I see a tls drive by I want it so bad and dont care about anything else... ignore me im rambling.

TacoBello

They're nice cars for sure. By the end of the day, the Type S still isn't a sports car by any stretch of the imagination. If you buy one, it'd solely be for the looks and the fact they're fully loaded.

An automatic Type S is still slower than a base 6-speed. A manual Type S is the fastest of them all.

erdoc48

I let my MID go below 10-15% and then the annoying yellow light on the MID gets to me and I get the oil changed- I get ~ 7500-8000 miles per oil change.

sopmodm14

check the dipstick...if its within the range, you should be ok

i shudder to think of all that oil being wasted for disposal from earlier-than-called for oil changes

JTS97Z28

iTrader: (4)

I will be doing mine shortly here and the MID shows 30% remaining. Reason being is my car gets driven so minimally that if I let it go the entire amount it would be like 2 years between changes lol.
Who knows maybe that's fine, but I have no problems doing the oil change especially on the TL since it's really easy.

truonghthe

I start to made appointment for oil change around 15% which around 5500 miles. I always used Mobil 1.

FamilyGuy

I change below when it's below the 15% warning, usually bout ~5k miles.

Oh Sickest TL

iTrader: (3)

yea I do mine every 6000kms (3700MILES) regardless of what the MID tells me

aameghoo

Is it worthwhile to use synthetic if you just follow the MID for oil changes? I normally get the basic conventional oil put in and follow whenever the MID says it's time for an oil change. Figure I don't have much to gain by using synthetic, wanted to see what other's thoughts were though

YeuEmMaiMai

before the 2004 TL the oil change was 7200 miles or 11.5Km for normal driving conditions. for severe driving it's about half of that.(stuff like stop and go, extreme temps, long idling, etc)

LaCostaRacer

This is me too. I would let it get down to 5% otherwise, but the alert bugs me enough to change the oil more than being scared that the Mobile-1 oil is actually bad. Make sure you change the filter each and every time you change the oil and ignore the A1/A2 differentiation- do an A2 each change and you'll be good.

truonghthe

Yes use synthetic there was a time I am 3k miles over due on oil change According to MID however I know that Mobil 1 is always filled no worry.

TacoBello

I think our minds our geared in such a way that we believe that synthetic is the only choice and should always be used. In reality, Motor oil is so advanced today that using regular oil is all good. No, it won't last as long as synthetic, but you'll never have issues running regular oil.

I myself use synthetic. But I wouldn't hesitate to use a regular oil either. I just continued using what the previous owner of my car did. Had he used regular oil, I'd do the same. I have yet to meet a person who has suffered a catastrophic engine failure from using regular oil while still doing regular oil changes.

TacoBello

This is more concerning. Although the oil may still be ok, our oil filters aren't made to last that long.

TacoBello

Just burning your money. You're not gaining anything by doing so.

Oh Sickest TL

iTrader: (3)

its 50-60bucks lol twice a year

TacoBello

Fair enough, but it's still not necessary. $60 buys a lot of beer

Oh Sickest TL

iTrader: (3)

hahahah no doubt

truonghthe

No worry about the filter, it's mobil 1 filter.

350

iTrader: (4)

I normally change my oil about once a year and I think it read 20% last time, figure 6k miles. Go with the indicator unless you're low mileage, water still accumulates especially if you drive less so I don't let it go over a year.

Waldo

yea. what does the mfg know about their car, wouldn t listen to anything they say and change it every 5000 miles, don t pay any heed to the mid, it s all bogus. The owners always know more than the mfg. Oil companies love people that don t know what they are doing.

polobunny

I agree with you, however regarding resale value and the many myths regarding cars, saying "always synthetic" makes people believe it was better cared for.

TacoBello

Judging by the amount of bullshit people out there selling their cars, you could say "always ran on synthetic" with little to back it up. Being a ten year old car, not having maintenance records isn't all that unexpected.

I'd choose the car that had regular oil changes done using Dino oil, as opposed to one being ran on synthetic and 3000mi past the maintenance interval. Of course, proving interval changes and oil type without receipts is near Impossible.

polobunny

Oh I agree, but I'm a honest guy with good intentions, my point being that's I'd put synthetic and tell it was synthetic instead of dino oil and selling it as synthetic. Know what I mean?

Besides, most synthetic blends can go way past what the MID tells us. It's being overly cautious, which isn't a bad thing in itself though.

anx1300c

iTrader: (2)

My advice is to follow the MID if you're running dino oil. A quality, true synthetic (not regular Mobil 1) will easily go double what the MID says, and even longer under normal operating conditions. At that point, a quality filter is of paramount importance.

TacoBello

Yes, I'd say the MID is more calibrated towards the OEM filter being done at the point it says 0%. Sure, synthetic oil can last longer, but an oem filter will not. And how much longer can you trust an aftermarket filter? 1k? 5k? 10k?

I'd venture a guess that every car model is different and every engine model is different- what lasts 15k on one car model may not be the case on another car model. To just avoid any risk, I use oem filters and change them when the MID says to do so.

anx1300c

iTrader: (2)

^^

When I sent a 12k mile sample of Redline 0w20 to Blackstone Labs and it came back with life still left in it, I have to assume the Royal Purple filter I was using did its job. You should have no issues going 10k plus with a quality filter that uses a synthetic media.

LaCostaRacer

A couple thoughts on this subject:

1. For those people who change their own oil, tear off the filter box top and place into an old oil filter box for safe keeping. This is my 'proof' that I changed the oil N times since I won't have a receipt of the actual service. A prospective buyer won't challenge you on this if you can show your tools and some evidence to back up your claims. The car's presentation should sell itself anyway and you probably won't get into these details if your car is kept well.

2. The OEM filter is designed to last 15k-ish miles- hence the A-1 & A-2 designations. While I don't follow that advice and change the filter every 8k-ish miles, I would have no reservations extending the filter change cycle whatever makes sense for the oil change. My main reason for changing the filter lies with the dirty oil residing in it and the fact that a filter is pretty cheap anyway compared to the cost of a quart of synthetic oil. I use Purolator filters and they run < $5- especially when on sale.

3. Changing the oil every 3k miles is a silly thing to do with modern Dino or synthetic oil. I hope those that do this are not the ones asking about whether it's ok to run regular instead of premium gas to save money- you're spending much more doing these frequent oil changes than the difference in regular .vs. premium gas prices.

4. Regardless of what you do regarding engine oil changes, there's a pretty high chance that that the TL motor will outlast your willingness to own the car. The difference in oil selection and change intervals may take 600k+ miles to show any difference in how or when we change the oil. My guess is it will be electronics or transmission that will kill my use of the TL and not the motor itself.