I have believed in the past and still believe to this day that the recommended OCI is too long for the VCM engines, or at least doesn't allow enough freeboard for severe circumstances. The basic engine design is solid; the VCM is simply special valvetrain componentry and programming. You never see these issues on non-VCM engines. But it's clear that the VCM system CAN present, in a clearly small number of situations, some sort of additional challenge to the lubricant that appears to not have been accounted for in the OLM programming.
So...what do you do?
I think the correlation between Honda's VCM 3.5L engine and some of GM's V-6 engines is striking. GM detected a problem in the engines that, as I recall, was related to the timing chain. The OLM was subsequently updated by a service campaign to indicate a maximum oil life of 5,000 miles. If I recall correctly, this was a significant reduction from the original maximum oil life. This undoubtedly added to the total cost of ownership for all owners, due to more frequent oil changes (I know what you're thinking, but stay with me here).
Honda undoubtedly knows about the problem here. Two have been reported on BITOG. Maybe there are as many as another 1,000 engines out there that have been repaired. You don't see it reported on internet forums with too much regularity, but it is happening. So what SHOULD Honda do here for owners of existing VCM-equipped engines?
Option 1: Reprogram the MM for all owners. I think this has more potential negative implications than people give it credit for. It would most likely increase the frequency of oil changes for everyone, even those engines that may not be predisposed to the problem. It would likely save some owners (or Honda) the expense of new engines. The question that none of us can answer is what is the real failure rate here? How many people really experience this problem compared with the number of people who never will? It's easy to say "reduce the OCI" as a knee-jerk reaction, but doing so may "penalize" a vast majority of owners for the benefit of a relative very few.
Option 2: Change the recommended lubricant. I don't know what the legal implications of this would be, or even if a different lubricant would be more effective. Certainly, one could posit that any synthetic 5W-20 would provide better sludge defense at current OCIs than a conventional 5W-20. Would a 5W-30 be better? Maybe. Ford has demonstrated that it can make an official recommendation to a heavier grade of oil (moving to a 40 grade to attenuate VCT noises), but there are likely a lot of legal hurdles here to overcome, because these engines were emissions-certified using 5W-20. Still, a recommendation for a synthetic 5W-20 could be appropriate. The same issue applies as in Option 1 above: you may be "penalizing" a majority of the owners to benefit just a few.
Option 3: An educational campaign. I think this may be Honda's best option. Send out letters to owners of these vehicles; not recall letters, but simply informational letters advising customers of the potential issue of running long OCIs with conventional oil. The risk you run here is potentially confusing some owners and alarming others about a problem that may only apply to a very few.
A constant theme in all three options, and likely any other option that Honda has at its disposal, is it has to strike a balance between trying to ensure a potentially very few owners who may be predisposed to this issue don’t have problems, without negatively affecting a potentially great number of owners who never will experience this. What if half of the engines were failing? I think that most people would agree that broad preventative action would be appropriate. But as the actual failure percentage figure goes down, when do you make the decision that it’s not appropriate to make ALL owners change their maintenance habits? 5%? 1%? 0.01%?
Honda has that number. I don’t. As much as I’d like to say that “Honda should really do something about this”, I really don’t have enough information to make that judgment. GM made the decision to have ALL owners of those engines reduce their OCI (via reprogramming the OLM). GM apparently felt that enough people would potentially be involved to make that broad change. Are enough Honda owners potentially affected to justify compelling all owners to reduce their OCI?
So...what do you do?
I think the correlation between Honda's VCM 3.5L engine and some of GM's V-6 engines is striking. GM detected a problem in the engines that, as I recall, was related to the timing chain. The OLM was subsequently updated by a service campaign to indicate a maximum oil life of 5,000 miles. If I recall correctly, this was a significant reduction from the original maximum oil life. This undoubtedly added to the total cost of ownership for all owners, due to more frequent oil changes (I know what you're thinking, but stay with me here).
Honda undoubtedly knows about the problem here. Two have been reported on BITOG. Maybe there are as many as another 1,000 engines out there that have been repaired. You don't see it reported on internet forums with too much regularity, but it is happening. So what SHOULD Honda do here for owners of existing VCM-equipped engines?
Option 1: Reprogram the MM for all owners. I think this has more potential negative implications than people give it credit for. It would most likely increase the frequency of oil changes for everyone, even those engines that may not be predisposed to the problem. It would likely save some owners (or Honda) the expense of new engines. The question that none of us can answer is what is the real failure rate here? How many people really experience this problem compared with the number of people who never will? It's easy to say "reduce the OCI" as a knee-jerk reaction, but doing so may "penalize" a vast majority of owners for the benefit of a relative very few.
Option 2: Change the recommended lubricant. I don't know what the legal implications of this would be, or even if a different lubricant would be more effective. Certainly, one could posit that any synthetic 5W-20 would provide better sludge defense at current OCIs than a conventional 5W-20. Would a 5W-30 be better? Maybe. Ford has demonstrated that it can make an official recommendation to a heavier grade of oil (moving to a 40 grade to attenuate VCT noises), but there are likely a lot of legal hurdles here to overcome, because these engines were emissions-certified using 5W-20. Still, a recommendation for a synthetic 5W-20 could be appropriate. The same issue applies as in Option 1 above: you may be "penalizing" a majority of the owners to benefit just a few.
Option 3: An educational campaign. I think this may be Honda's best option. Send out letters to owners of these vehicles; not recall letters, but simply informational letters advising customers of the potential issue of running long OCIs with conventional oil. The risk you run here is potentially confusing some owners and alarming others about a problem that may only apply to a very few.
A constant theme in all three options, and likely any other option that Honda has at its disposal, is it has to strike a balance between trying to ensure a potentially very few owners who may be predisposed to this issue don’t have problems, without negatively affecting a potentially great number of owners who never will experience this. What if half of the engines were failing? I think that most people would agree that broad preventative action would be appropriate. But as the actual failure percentage figure goes down, when do you make the decision that it’s not appropriate to make ALL owners change their maintenance habits? 5%? 1%? 0.01%?
Honda has that number. I don’t. As much as I’d like to say that “Honda should really do something about this”, I really don’t have enough information to make that judgment. GM made the decision to have ALL owners of those engines reduce their OCI (via reprogramming the OLM). GM apparently felt that enough people would potentially be involved to make that broad change. Are enough Honda owners potentially affected to justify compelling all owners to reduce their OCI?
