"Engine Oil Change Soon"

[propwash]

Update: I took the car in for an oil change today, and they also did the recall 15V-340 on the steering system. That consisted of an update to the power steering system control module. They also inspected the steering gear, and said that it was just fine. The service adviser told me that they have done around 100 or so of these recall inspections, and they have yet to find a steering gear that needs to be replaced. I guess that's good news for most owners.

 

I told them about the engine oil change soon message not appearing when the oil life monitor got down to below 10%. They ran some kind of test and said that the cluster needs to be replaced. They don't have the part in stock, so they ordered it and he said it would probably be a week or so before they have it. I'm not sure what cluster they are referring to, but I think it's probably the main instrument cluster. If the only thing that is wrong is that this message is not appearing, I'm not sure that I would have anything replaced. I can monitor the oil life myself, and change it when I think it's necessary. My fear is that when they take the dashboard apart to replace the cluster, this will introduce squeaks and rattles that were not there before. I have never had good luck in the past when the instrument panel has been disassembled. Right now the car is nice and tight. There are no rattles at all. I wish I could be sure that this will be the case when they have replaced that cluster. The problem is that if I don't have it replaced, there might be some other messages that don't pop up when they should They said they would replace it under warranty, for which I was grateful. I'm glad I took it in and complained when it was still under warranty, so they had that documented.

 

Has anybody had any bad experiences involving maintenance work on the instrument cluster? I'm probably overreacting on this, but little squeaks and rattles drive me absolutely insane, and I would surely like to avoid them if possible!

[propwash]

Things are still not right with my intelligent oil life monitor. They called a couple weeks after the oil change and said that the part was in. I took the car in, and at that time the oil life monitor was down to 92%. So far, so good. I figured this service was going to include disconnecting the battery, so I dutifully wrote down all my radio presets and even the values in the odometer and the two trip meters. They paged me about 45 minutes later and asked if I had all my keys with me. Of course I didn't, so they had a porter drive me home so I could get the remaining keys. They had to program all of them at the same time so I would have three working keys.

 

After the work was done, I noticed that the trip odometers were kind of messed up. One was reset to zero and the other one showed about 6.3 miles. The main odometer showed about 10 miles more than it did when I turned the car in for service, so I don't know where that 6.3 mile figure came from. But the clock and radio presets were all fine--nothing to reset there.

 

The problem is, that was many months and a few hundred miles ago, and the oil life monitor has not changed from the 92% value. It went from 100% down to 92% in a couple of weeks, but hasn't changed from 92% in six months. I plan on taking it by just to advise them that something is still wrong, and see what they recommend. It's pretty cold out now, but I'll take it in when things warm up again.

 

Does anyone have any ideas what the problem could be? I get a message about the rear parking aid every time I shift into reverse to back out of the garage, so I think the message center in the instrument cluster is working. Before they did the swap, it seemed like the message center wasn't working, but the oil life monitor was. Now it seems like the message center is working but the oil life monitor is not. If I had my choice, I would rather it be like it was before. At least that way I could know the oil life by manually checking the monitor. Anyway, I would appreciate any suggestions anyone might have. I'd like to get this matter cleared up once and for all.

Edited February 15, 2016 by propwash

[propwash]

It looks like there might be a tiny light visible at the end of the tunnel. I took the car in a couple weeks ago and discussed things with the service adviser. He thought that they should have reset the oil life monitor to 100% when they changed the cluster. I told him that it read 92% before and after the cluster swap. He suggested that I go ahead and reset it back to 100% and see what happens. So, I reset it to 100% and went home. Over the next few days the life started decreasing, as it should, down from 100. A couple days ago it hit 92% again, and I started wondering if it was going to go lower since it got stuck on 92% before. Yesterday, I noticed that it was at 91%, so I'm hoping that it will continue decreasing as I drive the car.

 

I still won't know if the change oil message will appear at 10% oil life remaining, because it was stuck on 92% for so long that I think I'm probably down to around 50% or so now. If I let things go until the monitor reads 10%, I will have probably gone down into the negative range because of how long things were stuck on 92%. I think I'll change the oil this time at around 40-50% remaining, reset back to 100 and then hope for the message to appear the next time it hits 10% remaining. I'll just have to wait and see what happens.