Thread: Oil life on dic

on my gp when i got it the "oil life" was at 50% when i changed it the oil looked really black for just 50% i would go by how many miles i put on it the DIC cant be trusted its great for know when someone has a door open but even then it takes what 2 seconds to look?? so really if its been more than 3000 miles then yeah change it

Engine run time and and the type of driving you do will determine how quickly it goes down.

If you idle it alot warming it up and drive mainly city, it will go down faster. But if you only drove freeway, you'd hit the 3,000-5,000 miles before it ever reached zero.

I find the oil change sticker on my windshield is far more accurate. I change my oil on a regular basis (5-6000km), but the DIC advises me to soon or to late, so I just reset it when it lights up.

Lol I was just wondering about this. According to the dic I got 26.7mpg on my trip back home cruise set at 80. 376 mile trip and it said I still had another 70 I could go.

Originally Posted by Travisgt2

Lol I was just wondering about this. According to the dic I got 26.7mpg on my trip back home cruise set at 80. 376 mile trip and it said I still had another 70 I could go.

Well that's a slightly different topic but your computer was pretty accurate though. 26.7 mpg with 17 gallons is 454 miles, so you could have gone another 70 miles but at the risk of running out.

This is my first time driving with my five button dic and first trip with it. I love being able see my trans temp and volts. As for oil life I don't trust it I change mine every 3k no matter what some times little before if I know I have a trip coming up. I also run 8oz Lucas heavy duty stop leak every oil change. Oil has been looking a lot better when I change it and Oil pan leak has slowed a little

I like to keep an eye on the oil's clarity and base my interval on that, but- I've put around 80K miles on my 99 GPs, and from that experience I can say this...

0% oil life takes more like 7,500 miles. If you change your oil at about 35-40% by the DIC, you are right in that 2500-3000 miles range where most car guys will want fresh oil with new filter. As far as the DIC MPG goes, subtract 1.5-2 MPG and its fairly realistic. Lots of variables in play on both subjects.

I was just talking about oil life monitors at work today. I wouldn't trust them for a second. They are based on calculations and equations and not real world mileage.

Hell I remote start my car and because it's remote started things like the oil life monitor, estimated mpg, etc don't calculate at that time so it's wrong from the start.

When I used to drive 24 miles to work with half of it being a 4 lane road I wouldn't even be at 50% after 5,000 miles, so if I was stupid and followed the DIC then I wouldn't have changed the oil til well after 10,000 miles.

I buy cheap non synthetic oil (whatever is on sale) and a Purolator filter and change the oil every 5,000 miles (or 6 months when I was hardly putting any mileage on it) and the car is just shy of 185k miles. I bought it with 123k 5 years ago. If I trusted the oil life monitor I would guess my engine wouldn't have lasted this long.

The DIC calculated based on idle time and a bunch of other factors. I drive about 4 hours a day in New York City traffic and after about 1,000 miles my oil life is at 20-30%. Before I worked this job I would change the oil about 2-4 times a year based on the DIC. So I would follow it. Oil changes are cheap and easy.