First Oil Change / Dealer Issues

I too bought my car before Toyota's free maintenance promo & got 2 dealer issued "free oil change" coupons. I used the 1st one at 10,000 miles & experienced only a minor effort in upselling from Holman Toyota.

Don't pay for scheduled maintenance. All you need are oil & filter changes. Buy the air filters & change them yourself.

 

Haha i know. What i was getting at is theres nothing thinner to put in our prius. And you definitely don't want to put a thicker oil in a car designed for thin oil, unless the manual gives you those graphs with the varying temperature ranges and different oil weights, which the prius manual does not.

 

Exactly. CAFE trumps all. Its cheaper for a car company to replace some blown engines than it is to pay the fines.

The penalty for failing to meet CAFE standards recently increased from $5.00 to $5.50 per tenth of a mile per gallon for each tenth under the target value times the total volume of those vehicles manufactured for a given model year.

 

The oil may be for CAFE standards, but using 0W-20 won't blow your engine. It meets the API SL standard, so it will lubricate. Using thin oil does not destroy your engine. My mom's honda odyssey specifies 5W-20 (which is extremely similar to 0W-20), and she's used that for 120k miles no problems.

 

I am a little confused by your two posts. In the first one, it seems like the dealer forced his will and gave you a 5W30 oil change. In the above post, you clarify that you did prevail and got the 0W20 oil. I'll assume the latter. Btw, I think the owner's manual specifies 3.8 quarts of oil, so normally if you are providing your own oil, you'd purchase only 4 quart cans of Mobil 1 (unless there's a 5-Q can sold?).

So who was this dealer? I want to know because I live in NJ too and would like to know which dealer service centers to avoid!

 

Some Southwest owners of Mazda RX8s might disagree. There is only one optimum viscosity oil for every engine. Requiring an owner to use any other so you can meet CAFE standards is pretty close to the ethical line.

When an automaker requires different viscosity oil in the US than it does in Europe, for the exact same vehicle, you can bet that minimizing engine wear isn't the first priority.

 

To add to my previous post - attached the 2 pages in the German User's manual where it says that down to 5W-30 can be used without issue, provided that the following oil change is 0W-20.
Text reads:

"Choice of the right Motor Oil

For the engine of your Prius "Toyota Genuine Motor oil" is used. Use Toyota suggested "Toyota Genuine Motor Oil" or a similar quality motor oil of the following type and viscosity.

Oil quality:
0W-20...
Motor oil of API-Classes SL Energy Conserving or SM Energy Conserving types, or respectively ILSAC Multi-grade Oil (?)
15W-40...
Motor oil of API-Classes SL or SM Multi-grade Oil

Suggested Oil Viscosity (SAE):
From the fab your Toyota is filled with SAE 0W-20 oil, this is the best choice to save fuel and eases start-ups with cold weather.
In case no SAE 0W-20 oil is available, then also SAE 5W-30 oil can be used. At the next oil change it should be replaced with SAE 0W-20 oil.

A motor oil of SAE-Class 10W-30 or with higher viscosity can bring problems at start-up at extremely low temperatures. It is advisable therefore, to use a motor-oil with 5W-30 or lower viscosity."

The second page 547 explains that the "0W" indicates the capacity of easing start ups at low temperatures (as per chart). The "-20" indicates instead the viscosity at working temperatures. Higher viscosity oils are to be used (the manual says) in case of high speeds or very high loads.

Then there are notes on how to read labels on oil cans/bottles.

I don't expect therefore any noticeable performance and FE hit by having 5W-30 oil in now (they put exactly 4.2 liters, as per manual) and will remind them to put 0W-20 when I go back for the full check at 30.000km.

Why are there all these manual differences, I don't understand, really. I would expect manuals in the EU to read exactly the same - maybe somebody from other EU countries reading this (or elsewhere on the planet) comment on the above and highlight any differences.

 

The temperature ranges they show for 10W-30, 15W-40 and 20W-50 are identical to the recommendations by many engine manufacturers. for the past few decades.

My interpretation is that they are saying that 0W-20 is what they recommend for best fuel economy but the others will do no harm and can be better for your engine under hard running conditions. Also that the Earth won't spiral out of it's orbit and crash into the Sun if you put 10W-30 in a Prius.

They won't be that truthful in the US because they need to tell people to use 0W-20 to keep their fuel consumption rating.

 

Thank you for scanning and posting the two pages from your German owner manual. My German is fluent, no translation necessary

Dankeshon!

My question - can you even find 0W-20 in the EU? I have no doubt most car service centres will stock the more common EU grades