I'm not talking insane slow-downs here man. My wife doesn't notice a difference, its just something that I notice knowing the car well. In addition, I am in no way a novice when it comes to cars.

As to the oil, first of all, its much much lighter of an oil (5w20). Second, i've read many many discussions and reports on the oil change intervals for the Element. Many of them have 100k plus miles w/ 10k oil changes, and the engine shows no issues what so ever...just like honda recommends.

Personally, when i change the oil at 10k miles it looks much cleaner and like new oil than my civic's oil does after 3k miles. I don't know why there is such a difference, but there is. Maybe the engine's tolerances are a lot better and they keep out dirt & debris better? Maybe temperatures are more stable? Who knows...I'm by no means an engineer that designed the K24 nor do i have the ability to do extensive testing on the subject.

I do know however that Honda always UNDER states what they recommend for their cars b/c they don't want a bad reputation. If 10k miles between oil changes would be damaging to their new line, they would have stated something lower. Just my opinion....