I'm been reading up on this as well, trying to decide whether to go by the maintenance minder or some other interval.
It doesn't look like Honda publishes a recommended interval anywhere—not in the manual,not on their website, not on ownerlink—they always say to follow the MM. But, I did find that Edmunds includes the 2012 Civic in their section on
maintenance schedules, and for the Si it calls for 10,000 mile intervals. (I didn't check the other trims.) In fact, you can match up all the MM codes to the various intervals of 10K, 20K, 30K, and 60K miles. I'm assuming Edmunds gets their information from Honda, but I don't know that for sure.
I understand MM is meant to simplify scheduled maintenance, but I don't know what could be simpler than following a mileage schedule. Then I realized that in the past, manufacturers had different schedules for "normal" and "severe" driving, and trying to determine which to follow is where the guesswork came in. So dealers and mechanics defaulted everyone to "severe" and the 3000 mile oil change interval just to be safe.
I believe that's what MM is able to do for you. It can't determine the quality of the oil, but it can monitor all of those parameters that are used to differentiate between "normal" and "severe" driving conditions, and determine the appropriate maintenance schedule. So it's not there because drivers are too dumb to follow a mileage schedule. It's there because knowing which mileage schedule to follow can be difficult to determine. Also, it can customize a maintenance schedule to your driving conditions if they fall somewhere between "normal" and "severe" and it can adjust on the fly if your driving conditions change.
