Does anyone religiously stick to their maintenance schedule?

[aman]

Just curious. The way I drive, I'll be getting maintenance every month and a half. Seems excessive.

[rick77f]

I do everything in the maintenance schedule and then some on everything I own. Always have, always will.

[IceD out N CALI]

usually not, but because the ep is under lease i'm sticking pretty close to it

[sonic imperial]

I always stick with the schedule in the manual as close as humanly possible. I may go in a few miles under or over, but it's nearly impossible to bring it on the exact mile marker.

[chunky]

i do everything well before factory reccomended intervals. oil changes at 3k miles, filters changed well before necessary, tranny fluid changed every 15k miles.

so far i've been rewarded with cars that last for a long time and perform better than average.

i drive hard as hell though, so it's also my way of making it up to estella.

[Mechanic]

Originally posted by rick77f
I do everything in the maintenance schedule and then some on everything I own. Always have, always will.

I'm with Rick, but frankly, even when I'm crawling around under my cars, I know it's not necessary to do half the stuff I do. These days, with unleaded gas and the quality of most motor oils, as long as you change oil and filters at the intervals specified in the owner's manual, stay in the "fat" of the tach, and keep your car off of salted roads in the winter, it's damn near impossible to have any major problems for 100k.

[aman]

What's the "fat" of the tach ????


Oops, I misread... schedule every 8,000 km, not 4,000 km. It's not that excessive.

[JLannoo]

Originally posted by Mechanic


..........and keep your car off of salted roads in the winter....


Well that one is just not possible for me here in Michigan LOL

Wish it was...all my cars have been eaten up a bit over the winters. :(

[redlineracing]

i do everything well before factory reccomended intervals. oil changes at 3k miles, filters changed well before necessary, tranny fluid changed every 15k miles.

so far i've been rewarded with cars that last for a long time and perform better than average.

i drive hard as hell though, so it's also my way of making it up to estella.


Damn man are you my twin?

;)

[rick77f]

Happy Thanksgiving. I did oil change #2 today at exactly 3000 mi. My brother and I cut open the filter again and everything looks a lot cleaner compared to oil change #1 at 500 mi. The stock honda filters suck ass. They are made by Fram, and still have cardboard end caps. I am going to buy mine at Acura since they still carry the Japanese made (Tokyo-Roki) filters.

[Mechanic]

Originally posted by aman
What's the "fat" of the tach ????

Sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday, Aman, I was eating stuffing.

If you'll go to Cone Killer's thread "Higer Reline" (sic) [he types like me--he was after "Higher Redline"], you'll see that Cone Killer has posted a graph of horsepower and torque curves for the K20 engine in an RSX. You'll also see that in the stock K20 motor, the two curves are essentially flat between 3k and 5k rpm. Although the RSX motor is tuned slightly different than the K20 in the Si, the graph is close enough for my point: that range, 3000 to 5000 is the fat of the tach.

[bsdbytes]

Regarding maintenance of the Si. A few people have mentioned having crunchy gears once in awhile. I was wondering if anyone had or was going to change their manual transmission fluid sooner than recommended?

Mike

[Mechanic]

Originally posted by bsdbytes
Regarding maintenance of the Si. A few people have mentioned having crunchy gears once in awhile. I was wondering if anyone had or was going to change their manual transmission fluid sooner than recommended? Mike

As you know, the EP series (and its Acura counterpart) have a really tight shift pattern. Put that together with the fact that Hondas have never been cars that like powershifts, and you have the real potential for breaking the sychomesh rings before they can be run in normally. Once a sychomesh ring is broken or is worn so thin that it can't function, the only option is to pull the tranny and replace the part. As you may know, synchomesh rings rub between the gear you are moving out of and the one you are shifting into, causing the two to move at the same speed so you can change gears with their clashing or crunching. The very best "maintenance" for the tranny is to baby it when it's new (a thousand miles or so) and/or cold (everyday).

As for changing the oil in the tranny, these days Honda doesn't recommend changing tranny oil for 100k miles. They used to recommend changing tranny oil at 30k but stopped doing so because they felt it wasn't necessary. Also, Honda learned from experience that people tend to overfill the transmission when they service it. Honda also learned that the small amount of junk that ends up in the oil with time actually helps polish the gears and synchomesh with time. Go figure.

If you are really obsessed with the idea of changing the tranny oil, were I you, I'd fill it with the same weight oil but use a synthetic. Contrary to popular belief, it won't shift that much better (except when it's cold), but the oil will run a bit cooler and you'll never have to change it because, unlike dino oil, synthetic oil that is not exposed to combustion gases never wears out. But, to repeat myself, Honda doesn't recommend changing the original oil before 100k, so you're really doing much more than is needed. But, what the heck, it's fun to mess with 'em, and it will give you something to do. (Those who do change to a synthetic seem to prefer Redline, by the way.)