AtWhatMileage
Engine · 10 owner reports

Excessive oil consumption on the 2008 Honda Odyssey

Only 7 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.

Reports of this failure 10
With an odometer reading 7
Reports per 1,000 built 0.1 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 0%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $900–$6,500
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 13th

When excessive oil consumption gets reported

There are 10 reports of excessive oil consumption on the 2008 Honda Odyssey, 7 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 13th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 7 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 100,000 miles — —

Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.

What a percentile can and cannot tell you here

These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.

What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.

Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.

What happens, and what it costs

Putting it right typically runs $900–$6,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.

The same failure on other years

The same failure is reported on 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 50,000 miles, and latest on the 2011 at 110,000 miles.

By volume the 2013 carries the most reports, with 12; the 2008 has 10. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.

If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Check engine light came on. Dtcs p3400 and p3497 read. No oil on the dipstick. Took it to sussman honda where they stated that the fix is to replace the rear rocker. I pointed them to tsb 11-033 but they said it didn't apply to my car. Called american honda co. And they said the same thing. I filed a complaint. Only later did I discover tsb 13-031, which sussman followed but did not read the diagnosis section since the oil level was below the dipstick. Almost exactly 3 months and 4,000 miles later cel light comes on with dtcs p3400 and p3497 and oil level is below the dipstick, this time the car is starting to vibrate. Ahc still claims this is not a design flaw and offered no assistance. We are now being told by another dealer that burning oil is normal for the "pre-08 hondas with vcm" and that we should check it regularly. While I appreciate the honesty, I wish that honda would admit the engineering issue and fix it once for all. Using this much oil can't be good for the environment!

102,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1220585 filed 2015-09-20

Engine is burning about a quart of oil every 1,000 miles. I think this should be covered under their extended warranty. Here is what I found out about this extended warranty... On october 22, 2013, honda america agreed to settle the class-action suit. As part of the settlement, honda extended the powertrain warranty on these models for eight years from the time of purchase or lease with no mileage limits. Honda also offered to reimburse customers who had to pay out-of-pocket expenses for related repairs such as spark plugs, pistons or even entirely new engines (with limitations). United states district court for the northern district of california a federal court authorized this notice. This is not a solicitation from a lawyer. If you are a current or former owner or lessee of any of the following honda vehicles equipped with a 6-cylinder (?v6?) engine with variable cylinder management (?vcm-2?) you could receive benefits from a class action settlement concerning engine misfire, 1 including a limited warranty extension and reimbursement of outof-pocket expenses for engine misfire-related repairs: ? 2008-2012 honda accord; ?…

100,000 miles NHTSA complaint 1307405 filed 2016-08-11

Excessive oil consumption on honda odyssey 2008 exl - same run-around with honda stating 1 qt oil for every 1400-1500 miles is "normal". Informed dealership of class-action lawsuit and then they initiated a controlled oil consumption test which just ended recently. Awaiting response from honda corp regarding next steps as software update for vcm did not correct.

89,250 miles NHTSA complaint 1368667 filed 2017-04-05

Also reported on the 2008 Honda Odyssey

Other brake problem

139 reports median 25k

Liftgate, tailgate or trunk failure

65 reports median 63k

Other body or interior problem

59 reports median 75k

Other powertrain problem

25 reports median 40k

Other engine problem

24 reports median 70k

Other electrical problem

24 reports median 56k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 10 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.

Complaints are voluntary, so 10 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.

Questions this page answers

At what mileage does excessive oil consumption happen on the 2008 Honda Odyssey?

Across 7 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 100,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is excessive oil consumption on the 2008 Honda Odyssey?

10 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.

What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars

Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed