September 18, 2007
My car is starting to get close to its first warranty-mandated oil change. It's easy enough to keep track in the Jetta: if (mileage % 5000 == 0) getOilChange();
Nice and simple, even I can remember when the schedule is like that. Apparently they heard about how I'd let the Civic go a while without its scheduled maintenance. When I got in the car the other day it showed the odometer like always, but when I started the car the display showed a wrench.
Uh-oh, I said. (Well, actually it was more like WTF but let's not quibble over details.) But then I realized the odo now said "800", and a few seconds later the wrench went away and my real mileage of just over 4,200 came back up.
Apparently sometime in the last decade and a half they've added a code to the car's onboard computer that lets it tell you, "hey dummy, remember to get your oil changed." Probably not a bad idea, all things considered.
Now I'm curious as to what happens if you go over. Does it beep at you? Does it stay at zero? Show a negative mileage? Since I'm pretty sure they don't cancel the warranty for not stopping what you're doing and having the car towed in right at 5,000 miles I think I'll have to find out. And if it tries to show me a negative number only to have the odo display be unsigned I'll have to send a picture to The Daily WTF.
