What are we finding to be the best oil brand and weight out there for Honda VCM 3.5L V6 with the cylinder deactivation. I have a batch of Redline 0w20 awaiting my factory fill drain and a batch of the last of the Royal Purple 5W20 SL w/Synerlec to go in after that. I am thinking of switchin to Kendall GT1 0W20 or 5W20 or even 5W30 if 30 weight is better for these engines. I may use the Platinum 0W20 I got from Pepboys that I have been using in the standard 3.5L VTEC Odyssey. Reason I ask is I would like to stock one oil in the garage. Anyone have any experiences they would like to share?

I'm running Pennzoil Ultra 5w-20 in ours. I was running dino, but the OLM is going around 7500 miles between OCI's, and I wasn't comfortable with that. The oil also would get dirty really fast, so I had a feeling that it wasn't the cleanest engine inside.

The Ultra seems to be cleaning things up and the Pilot is running well on it. We've got about 44,000 on it now. I did have one issue with the engine using about 1/2 a quart on the 2nd OCI of Ultra. I guess it cleaned something up, because I haven't had any usage since then.

Bullseye haha

Kidding of course. I agree with PU or you can use PP. Both are great oils for your needs.

We ran Honda 0w20 in our two "company" Odyssey minivans without any issues. They were typically driven very short distances a few days a week.

I'm using Honda Genuine just so there are no excuses if mine starts mysteriously using oil. When that's gone, I'll probably use Toyota 0W-20 since I now have a large stash of that.

Mine isn't fussy, it happy burns whatever you pour in.
We bought it used with 42k, and it burned a quart of oil in 1500 miles or so. I gave it a dose of "Kreen" to help clean up the visible varnish, and later changed the oil to RP 5w20. It now burns a quart every 2500 miles or so, I just switched it over to 10w30 HDEO.

I just bought a 2012 V6 Accord and was wondering the same thing. Is the Mobil 1 0w20 a good match for this engine? I really don't want it burning oil if I can help prevent it. I'll tell ya though, this engine is super smooth, sounds great and is very fast!

hi K20fa5, you say the OLM is going around 7500 miles between OCI's.. no wonder your oil would get dirty fast, because your engine is working harder..

my OLM show 9,000 miles between OCI. I will use OLM to change fluid like vtm4, transmission, air filter..

I am using mobil super 5000 with Honda OEM filter. I change oil every 4,000 miles or 15 months... I don't follow honda recommendation or care about the warranty.

I had an older version of the 3.5 VCM, tried PYB, PP, Mobil 5000, no difference. OCI is about 6-7k per according to OLM.

Those engines run rich and the oil gets dirty fast... I had issues with my Acura MDX V6 and did OCI's of 5K. I would use only Mobil 1 EP or one of the good cleaning oils like PP or Ultra and stick to a 5K OCI.

Do you have data to back this up?

10 years of ownership history and good friends with an Acura master mechanic...

My history was with a 03 MDX, so if they have not done any changes recently, then I would expect my statement to still be true.

I'd say that Honda in general has some room for improvement on fuel mixture. Yes, some of their engines turn in stellar UOAs, but their V-6 is not one of them. Additionally, fuel economy in my CR-V drops substantially in colder weather, something that has not occured with other vehicles I've owned (and this was a mild winter, too).

I, too, keep our MDX to 5,000 miles max (though the owner's manual calls for static 7,500 mile intervals). I also use synthetic in it, though I will say that for the first 58k miles of its life, it saw nothing but conventional, and the cylinder head area under the cam cover appears to be very clean.

The Honda V-6 is a really nice engine that just seems to like shorter oil change intervals.

M1 0W-20 works well in it, at least in my experience. I do like PP 0W-20 a shade better, and that's probably what I'll continue to use. The PP is a touch quieter than the M1, but I note that this engine, or at least our engine, is extremely quiet on nearly anything you put in there (the K24 in our CR-V seems more sensitive to oil selection in terms of noise/smoothness). The M1 also seemed to leave a slightly yellow or orange tint to the aluminum cylinder heads. This coloring seems to be lessening as we put more miles on it with the PP. UOA-wise, I'm sure both M1 and PP 0W-20 would be excellent. But for subjective reasons, I prefer the PP in this case.

This V-6 is an exceedingly smooth engine that has a wonderful note as it revs, you are right. It's one of the best engines I've owned, in terms of how happy I am with it as an owner.

I just acquired an '08 Odyssey with the 3.5L VCM and 40,000 miles. I'm currently running Mobil 1 5W-20 and the OLM just dropped to 70% after 1700 miles on the oil. No oil usage and the engine is super quiet with the Mobil 1.

I did notice an Odyssey about the same year as mine idling in a parking lot yesterday that was making all kinds of engine noise, so that made me feel better about my M1.

After doing some research here, I'll be switching to PP 0W-20 after an interval of 5-6k on the current M1. The $20 rebate with their warranty registration is an added bonus.