Poll:100% Synthetic oil - change frequency

[VanWinkle]

My 2019 Highlander recommends synthetic change at 10,000 and rotation every 5000. I do both at 10,000.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chuckanut Here's a rather long video from a former Toyota master technician who has opened his own shop. His comments on the 10K oil change recommendation are interesting. Basically, he thinks it comes from the marketing department not the engineering department. He also recommends buying a good quality oil and changing it every 5000 miles versus buying Premium Oil and changing it every 10,000 miles. Yes, toss in a new filter every time you change the oil

I'm a Toyota Highlander owner (a 2014 and now a 2021 hybrid) who has been following this guy's YouTube videos for a while. He has convinced me to do an oil change at 5,000 miles (when the onboard reminder says) rather than follow the 10k mile schedule in the owner's manual.

His "engineering vs. marketing" explanation makes sense to me. In essence, Toyota marketing asked engineering if the engine will experience any problems within the 60 month/60,000 mile drive train warranty if the oil change interval was 10K miles. Engineering tells marketing the 10k oil change interval may lead to problems, but not until after the warranty period. Marketing says great, lets use the 10k reduced maintenance requirement as a feature to sell more cars!

[Aerides]

Chuck, how is it even possible to bump a 15-year-old thread?

[VanWinkle]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VanWinkle His "engineering vs. marketing" explanation makes sense to me. In essence, Toyota marketing asked engineering if the engine will experience any problems within the 60 month/60,000 mile drive train warranty if the oil change interval was 10K miles. Engineering tells marketing the 10k oil change interval may lead to problems, but not until after the warranty period. Marketing says great, lets use the 10k reduced maintenance requirement as a feature to sell more cars!

I'm calling BS on his explanation. Toyota does not do business that way. Some other car companies would be more likely to meet this quote.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aerides Chuck, how is it even possible to bump a 15-year-old thread?

Have you tried? I just get a warning and a box to click to acknowledge it is old.

Perhaps the 'app' version does not provide this option, but the browser does.

-ERD50

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VanWinkle I'm calling BS on his explanation. Toyota does not do business that way. Some other car companies would be more likely to meet this quote.

Maybe, maybe not. Doubt we will ever know which interpretation is accurate, but I am going to go with the 5k oil change frequency that 1) the onboard computer notifies me to follow and 2) is the more conservative of the two options.

YMMV, of course.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo ... His "engineering vs. marketing" explanation makes sense to me. In essence, Toyota marketing asked engineering if the engine will experience any problems within the 60 month/60,000 mile drive train warranty if the oil change interval was 10K miles. Engineering tells marketing the 10k oil change interval may lead to problems, but not until after the warranty period. Marketing says great, lets use the 10k reduced maintenance requirement as a feature to sell more cars!

Quote:

Originally Posted by VanWinkle I'm calling BS on his explanation. Toyota does not do business that way. Some other car companies would be more likely to meet this quote.

I'm also not buying it. Doesn't Toyota also have 100,000 mile spark plugs, long-life coolant, etc?

So many people take cars to 100,000, 200,000 or more, they'd get a bad rap and it would hurt sales.

I just skimmed the video, it's long, but is this based on just one (or a few?) examples? I recently had this discussion with someone who instead their 20046 GM required oil changes at 3000 miles, and that the manual said so. No, I found the manual on-line, and some GM tech papers. Follow the oil-minder, it generally comes on ~ 5,000~10,000 miles depending.

The old "I change my oil every 3,000 miles and never had an engine problem!" is phony logic. You very well may have also had no engine problems if you followed the oil-minder (based on total revolutions and temperature). In the process of doing some searching, I found plenty of posts to an owner's forum where people reported getting 250,000~300,000 miles following the oil-minder. Sure, that's anecdotal as well, but if the oil-minder was that aggressive, you'd think that would be almost impossible.

Remember, the oil-minder is taking driving conditions into account. You don't need to adjust for 'severe' driving vs highway driving, it does it for you.

-ERD50

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Maybe, maybe not. Doubt we will ever know which interpretation is accurate, but I am going to go with the 5k oil change frequency that 1) the onboard computer notifies me to follow and 2) is the more conservative of the two options. YMMV, of course.

Now I'm confused - I didn't think anyone was suggesting going beyond the oil-minder, I though they were just saying don't go beyond 3,000 miles?

Yes, follow the oil-minder, whatever miles are on it.

-ERD50

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 I just skimmed the video, it's long, but is this based on just one (or a few?) examples?

I agree it is a long video, but the guy (a certified Toyota mechanic) cites a number of examples (a few? more than a few?) of excessive levels of oil consumption in high mileage Toyota engines. He attributes these to 10K oil change intervals as discussed above.

BS or no? As I said, I've been following his YouTube channel on Toyotas for a while and he seems credible to me.

[Brett_Cameron]

I change the oil and oil filter in my 2019 Honda Pilot when the maintenance minder says to. That works out to about 7,500 miles using the OEM specified synthetic oil. About the same for my 2014 Accord hybrid.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Just realized this is a zombie thread - dead for over 15 years before yesterday's resurrection!

Chuckanut - why resurrect?

[mystang52]

I remember my new 1977 Ford Granada recommended oil change every 7500 miles; that was the first time I had seen a recommendation going beyond the standard 3000 miles. I was too nervous about it so opted to change oil at 5000 mile intervals. Never had a problem with that car, for whatever that means.
With my current cars, I changed at recommended 10,000 intervals.
We are driving less, now, so I'll use the 2nd recommendation of every 12 months.

[Jerry1]

On my truck, I drive more than 5K per year and I change it at every 5K mainly because it’s an easy number to remember. That results in about two changes per year. My other car doesn’t get many miles on it. I change that one once per year no matter the miles. I did have one year where it only got a few hundred miles on it and thought about not changing the oil, but ended up doing it anyway because the warranty (still in effect) says at least every year.

I always use a 100% synthetic.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by VanWinkle My 2019 Highlander recommends synthetic change at 10,000 and rotation every 5000. I do both at 10,000.

I had to look at the manual. It's a little vague, but it sounds like you are supposed to do the following, in order of importance:

https://assets.sia.toyota.com/public...Highlander.pdf

1) Change the oil if the oil-minder light comes on.

2) Under 'Special Operating Conditions ', change the oil at 5,000 miles (even if oil-minder has not activated), reset the oil-minder.

3) Under 'Normal Operating Conditions ', change the oil at 10,000 miles (even if oil-minder has not activated), reset the oil-minder.

That's different from other cars I've owned or knew about. The oil-minder takes into account the 'special conditions' - cold starts, hot, high-rpm driving, etc. Our 2011 Honda CRV does have the additional requirement of changing the oil once/year if light does not come on, I guess they can't measure that, there is no battery backed real-time-clock (you lose time if the car battery is disconnected).

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo I agree it is a long video, but the guy (a certified Toyota mechanic) cites a number of examples (a few? more than a few?) of excessive levels of oil consumption in high mileage Toyota engines. He attributes these to 10K oil change intervals as discussed above. BS or no? As I said, I've been following his YouTube channel on Toyotas for a while and he seems credible to me.

Yes, hard to say w/o a real study, but I'm still going to lean with the crowd that says Toyota would not risk their reputation over this - what's to be gained? They'd actually rather have you come in for more oil changes.

Another data point, but on a fleet - I know someone who had a fleet of diesel trucks for their service business (each truck had to travel to the home). Lots of idling, short drives (but I guess once warmed up for the day, they probably stayed hot for the day, so only one cold start most days?). These trucks took gallons (not quarts) of engine oil, so it was worth it for the owner to actually have an oil sample tested to gauge when to change it. I forget the actual numbers, but he could go way past the recommendations before the oil showed enough degradation to warrant a change.

I saw similar comments on a GM thread, some people would have the oil tested when the light came on (which might be 10,000 miles), and the oil still tested well within limits.

Did the guy in the video have any Toyota oil tested at 10,000?

-ERD50

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Just realized this is a zombie thread - dead for over 15 years before yesterday's resurrection!

As it happens this thread started the year we got our first Toyota Prius (2007) and from that point on I have only ever had the oil changed once a year during the annual service which happens to be about 10k miles on average.

I have just had our current Prius in for its annual service and while waiting watched one of the promotional/information videos showing on one of the TV screens. For a Prius it stated that the engine only runs 50% of the time, and if that is typical of other hybrids then an oil change at 10k miles means that the engine has only done 5k.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Quote: Originally Posted by REWahoo View Post Just realized this is a zombie thread - dead for over 15 years before yesterday's resurrection! Chuckanut - why resurrect?

Why not? The topic is still relevant, and 15 year old history might be interesting.

Hmmm, though it looks like only Texas Proud is still posting from that group.

-ERD50

[6miths]

Costco uses synthetic so that's what my vehicles get. The Maintenance minder on my Honda/Acura products has quite a long time between changes. Two of the vehicles have over 125k miles and the other has over 250k miles. Subaru interval is 6k and Hyundai even shorter at 4k which seems ridiculous.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan I have just had our current Prius in for its annual service and while waiting watched one of the promotional/information videos showing on one of the TV screens. For a Prius it stated that the engine only runs 50% of the time, and if that is typical of other hybrids then an oil change at 10k miles means that the engine has only done 5k.

Interesting point.

Our Highlander hybrid's engine runs considerably more than 50% of the time, I'd estimate 70% to 80%, depending on how much city vs highway driving we do. That would mean if I do a 5K oil change the engine would have run only 3.5k to 4k miles.

Maybe I'll walk on the wild side and go to 6K oil changes!

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Hmmm, though it looks like only Texas Proud is still posting from that group.

yakers still posts.

Sadly, I believe a couple of those folks are deceased.

[Lakedog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brett_Cameron I change the oil and oil filter in my 2019 Honda Pilot when the maintenance minder says to. That works out to about 7,500 miles using the OEM specified synthetic oil. About the same for my 2014 Accord hybrid.

I do the same with my 2007 Honda which has never had synthetic oil -- minder typically shows around 7500 miles for oil/filter change. May switch to a synthetic blend next oil change as it is becoming more difficult to find dino oil.

My previous 1992 Toyota truck was well before the synthetic age but oil changes still averaged around 7500 miles. With over 252,000 miles when sold, truck ran great and no noticeable oil usage between changes.