I'm going to start doing oil changes on a friend's Odyssey. I know it takes 4.2 qts of 0w-20. They usually take it to a quick lube place for whatever synthetic oil they get. The van is used for around town plus family trips. I would guess 10k miles a year. I do a yearly oil change on one of their other cars (a Ford Focus) and would like to do the same with the van. Thoughts on a good oil to accomplish this? Thinking that I would use a Fram XG for the filter.

**Edit. I do happen to have a fair amount of PPHM 5w-30. What about using that?

If the book calls for a 0W-20 use a 0W-20.

My brother has a 2007 and I use what's called for. His van runs fine.

I'm avoiding the undeniable reality of other oils not resulting in the destruction of your friend's engine.

Were it to fail, wouldn't you like to be in the position to truthfully claim to have used the proper stuff?

....even if he hit a gosh darn raised manhole? Who wouldn't want to eliminate the potential of guff? just sayin'

Yup. Any synthetic oil that the quick lube put in will likely be inferior to whats on the shelf at walmart. Even supertech.

Proper weight and api rating and your golden.

M1, PP, magnetec, qsud, would be my first few chioces.

The Odyssey was specced for 5w-20 oil through the 2010 model year. Honda later decided that 0w-20 was acceptable for those years. But I prefer to use 5w-20 in the 2007-2010 engines unless you live in a location with frigid winters. Another plus for using the 5w-20 is if the van has higher mileage.

So I'd use whatever SN rated synthetic is on sale, and go by the OLM or one year for your change interval. My 2007 Ridgeline now gets about 5-6K miles a year and uses virtually no oil between changes.

If its a VCM engine throw the book away and use 5w30 or 0w40 in that engine. No, the engineers didn't get it right on this engine, the clowns who dreamed up with this nightmare (they have been sued for it) need to go back working at a McDonald's drive through like they did in high school.
Get a VCM muzzler for it.

My `06 EXL Odyssey with cylinder deactivation holds 4 3/4 quarts to bring it to the full line for an oil change with filter. I have run everything from 0w-20 to 5w-30 and others run 0w-40 with success. The only difference I can tell is the engine is a little noisier with the lighter oils, but seems slightly more peppy with the 20 wts. as well.

Don't run the oil too long as these engines with cylinder deactivation are tough on oil. Mine is varnished/little sludge even though I follow the OLM and run full syn. oil. I have 141,000 on mine, owned since new.

We had an '05 Odyssey w/o VCM. I believe they added it in '06.

Regarding muzzlers, you're a mechanic, yes ? If so, do you recommend your customers add one ? If our Odyssey had VCM, I would have added one myself. Just curious how you deal with it.

Old VCM inhales - to many stages and new at the time loose algorithms.

New (2017) VCM has been great so far. Engagement is barely if at all perceptible.

Only 2 choices 6 and 3 which is easier to tune the engine mount and map loads to.

The old 6-4-3 was all over the map and the mounts never kept up.

Ive seen little to no oil consumption after the first 3500 miles (break in) so it doenst seem to be causing any consumption.

UD

The 05 had it on the Touring model and one other IIRC, yes by all means a muzzler is highly recommended for these engines.
The cylinder deactivation cause lots of stress on those $600 engine mounts, the front cylinder to over work and cause horrific deposits and varnish to the point the clog the spool valve causing all sorts of problems and the engine to run on 3 cylinders all the time.

You should change the oil every 3-4K with a synthetic on these engines and change the grossly undersized PCV (look at the picture of the small pcv opening, sorry for the poor focus) every 15K.

Here is a touring with VCM.

Mine uses 1/2 qt every 2500 miles like clockwork (regardless to brand or weight of oil). I average a 5000 mile OCI. So I add 1/2 qt. half way through the OCI.

Touring, EX and EX-L have VCM. LX did not. My 2006 EX-L has 190,000 miles and the VCM spool valve, valve train and valve covers have no sludge build up at all with only a slight varnish. I have used Fram Ultra filters and either Mobil One or Pennzoil Platinum 5w20 for every oil change, following the maintenance reminder intervals. Keep a close eye on the PVC. I have cleaned or replaced it 4-5 times, so once every 40k miles or so. I have had no problem with the VCM system or engine mounts so I consider myself lucky!

What does VCM mean?

What's a "muzzler"?

Variable Cylinder Management

The system turns off cylinders at times to theoretically improve fuel economy but in reality its almost useless and possibly does damage to the engine and other parts depending on driving conditions, the muzzler disables the system.

Thanks for that. So, is the muzzler a reprogramming of something? ....or is it a physical fix?

Gotta see if my brother's 2007 Odyssey Touring has VCM.

It plugs inline with the coolant temperature sensor, and adds enough resistance to fool the ECU into thinking the coolant temperature isn't high enough to activate VCM. Supposedly it doesn't throw the coolant temperature reading off enough to cause check engine lights.