A pit stop speed oil change at Honda Head

I got a pit stop speed oil change at my first visit to Honda Head in Din Linh, Vietnam.

Honda recommend changing the oil every 4,000km for normal road use, but if your doing off-road then increase the frequency to every 1,000km. So to hedge on the side of caution you maybe required by your rental agreement to do this maintenance every 1,000km. It may seem excessive, but given the engine is the most complex and expensive assembly of the vehicle, it's probably worth doing albeit rather excessive wear on the natural environment. Just think one day much of this oil will no longer be required as electric vehicles replace the combustion engine.

The good thing about the Honda Head shops is that they follow some standards across the country, so that the quality of service and price don't seem to fluctuate too much.

Whilst on my way from Cat Tien to Nha Trang, I arrived at this shop just as it was opening.

I didn't have much time to take off my helmet and take my gloves off before a guy had already flung a baking tin under the engine, slid himself along the floor on his back and spun the sump bolt off to see a fluid flow of dark brown syrupy oil pour into the tin.

Another moment later he had whipped off the filler cap with a pair of pliers to allow the last drops of oil to descend.

He pointed to the cashier mid stream, and just as I got my money out to pay I could see he was already tightening the sump bolt and pouring in the new oil.

Just as I finished paying, 100k Dong, and was strolling over to the bike he was tightening up the filler cap. I arrived at the bike where he bowed and ushered me on my way.

I didn't set my stopwatch, but I really think it was less than 4 minutes. Good thing too, since I have to do this literally every 3 times that I fill up the fuel tank, from top of reserve level, roughly every 330km.