Did you buy the car brand new? Don't worry, the engine oil in diesels goes black in under 1000 miles because of the sooty combustion by-products. Diesel-spec oil has additional detergents and additives to cope with this.

Just stick with the manufacturer's recommended service intervals and it should be fine. Most manufacturers recommend oil changes on an annual or mileage basis, whichever comes first.

I've got one, It depends how many miles you are doing, the spec is oil and filter change every 12500 miles or every 12 months. If you are doing a lot of short runs of less than 5-6 miles by all means have the oil changed more frequently - read the service book for guidance.

Make sure that the correct 5-30 or 0-30 fully synthetic oil is used, do not, repeat, do not, use semi-synthetic oil. The 0-30 oil is recommended by Honda for better fuel economy, mine is on 0-30 at the moment but makes no noticeable difference to the fuel consumption so I will go back to using 5-30 as it is cheaper and more readily available.

So the Honda 2.2D is spec'd for a 0W30 then? My Saab Aero 2.0T (that's petrol) is too. it's a hard grade to find. Even the Saab dealers only sell 5W30. I get my 0W30 from Motaquip, which i believe is Millers (you could try opie oils). On the positive side, that grade is only available as a fully synthetic afaik.

To answer your basic question, as it's your own car and you are likely to keep it a while, yes change the oil and filter twice a year (at least).

I have had my Saab 2 years exactly now and am about to carry out it's 5th oil change in that time (11k miles). It had 41k when I bought it and had 3 annual changes in the book. I intend to keep it at least 10 years and since HJ reckons these engines are prone to sludging the cam chain oilways, I wish to prevent that problem happening. I've also just changed the gearbox oil for Redline MTL.

I persued a similar policy with my last car, a 96 Rover 800 Vitesse (the 200PS version). I had it 11 years and sold it to an enthusiast from the club with 167k on the clock. Totaly original and never missed a beat. These cars were prone to chewing gearboxes (the PG1) and I had mine rebuilt at 90k. Then ran the 'box with Torco RTF, changed every 30k - never so much as a rattle in nearly 80k.

Oh, and I drive hard. Very hard sometimes. I don't drive a 260 horse car to pootle round in! Coming from a manufacturing based background, I'm fully enrolled in TPM (Total Preventative Maintenance).

Long oil change intervals are for the lease fleets. i know this from a background of 20 years as an R&D professional at a Midlands Premium vehicle manufacturer.