Honda Maintenance Minder

Honda has created a convenient system called Maintenance Minder that lets you know exactly when your vehicle should be brought in for various routine services. This intelligent system closely monitors your everyday driving conditions to determine when specific maintenance is due, taking all of the guesswork out of scheduling your oil changes and other visits. Maintenance Minder even benefits the environment by making sure that oil changes happen when they’re needed instead of when the calendar merely suggests it. This also translates to saving you cash. Read on to learn more about how Maintenance Minder works.

 

How Does it Work?

Rather than having a mileage-based service schedule to follow, Maintenance Minder will fill you in on exactly what needs to be taken care of and when. For starters, this system displays the engine oil life directly on your Honda’s information display, letting you know when the oil and other vehicle systems should be serviced. Oil life will be shown as a percentage, with 100% indicating that the oil is new and clean and 0% meaning it’s time to change it.

Maintenance Minder can gauge these percentages because the onboard computer system in your vehicle constantly monitors its engine operating conditions, including speed, engine and ambient temperature, time, and how much the vehicle is in use. It uses special algorithms to translate this usage data into the resulting amount of wear, and from there it determines which maintenance is needed when.

 

How to Use Maintenance Minder

All you have to do is press the Select/Reset knob located on your vehicle’s information display to view the oil use progression. If you want to return to the odometer, simply press the same Select/Reset knob again. Each time your car is turned on, the information center will automatically display the oil life percentage. When the on-board computer determines that the vehicles has reached 15% oil life, it will turn on the Maintenance Minder light and codes for you as a reminder to make your appointment.

With regard to percentages, 15% means you should plan on taking your vehicle to your local Honda dealer for service as soon as possible, while 5% means it should be serviced immediately. If it reaches 0%, this means that your oil service is overdue, at which point Maintenance Minder will begin to display the mileage as a negative number that indicates how many miles your vehicle service is past due.

 

Different Codes

You’ll find that Maintenance Minder will always display a main code, either A or B, and sometimes a second code (subcode) ranging from 1 to 7. Here’s what they mean: When you see code A, this means that only the engine oil needs to be replaced. With code B, the engine oil and filter will need to be replaced, along with inspections on the front and rear brakes, parking brake, and other vehicle components (refer to owner’s manual for more details). The subcodes are:

  1. Tire rotation
  2. Replace air cleaner element, check drive belt, and replace dust and pollen filter
  3. Replace transmission fluid and transfer fluid
  4. Replace spark plugs and timing belt; inspect water pump and valve clearance
  5. Replace engine coolant
  6. Replace rear differential fluid
  7. Flush and fill brake fluid