10K oil changes are BAD! ??

i got kicked like a like a rented mule in the last oci thread for suggesting 5k or one year, but lacking evidence to the contrary, that's what i choose.

 

And North of the 49th parallel, for 3rd gen Toyota Canada set the regular oil change interval at 5K miles.

South of that parallel, for 2nd gen, Toyota USA said 5K miles, if I'm not mistaken.

I can see incremental increases, say 25~50 percent, but double? When you do that you get folks wondering about your credibility.

 

Nothig beats clean oil for engine longevity. Old oil with contaminants carry abrasive detritus that wears components. The Grand Canyon was carved by water carrying sand and other abrasive materials, The only way to get this detritus out of engine oil is to catch it in a filter , replace the said filter and to drain and replace the oil. In the early days of internal combustian engines, oil was for one time use and thrown out with the exhaust. Oil crankcas sumps came later, and filters did not first come into use until the mid 1920's.

Varnish and carbonized buildup is another issue that is addressed by frequent oil changes.

 

Yep I saw that video....poor guy has to shell out $6,000 for the new block but that's a heck of a lot cheaper than buying another Camry. "The proof is in the pudding" so if you want to only change out that dirty oil yearly or every 10,000, it's your vehicle..not mine!

 

Why do these cars keep track of miles and tell you when you've driven the number of miles to do engine maintensance.
You'd think it would be smarter to keep track of miles driven with the engine on. Or hours driven with the engine on.
or keep track of both of those and tell you when you reach the minimum number for either.

Doesn't really matter, since EVs don't need oil changes and improvement like this won't be needed.

Mike

 

^
Great....
Prius smug 2.0, with a generous side helping of Marie-Antoinette.

EV's have engines that last a lot longer than the 200,000 or so miles that Priuses are supposed to be good for, that's for dang sure.

HOWEVER (comma!)
You can replace a Prius engine for about 6 large....or (some say) about half of what a BEV battery replacement would cost, and "some" BEV's out there have something of a sketch reputation when it comes to non-powertrain issues- like windshields, HVAC, door handles, etc....

I'll let the early adopters stand in line for the iPhone models 1 thru x, and then get the droid model for 25% of the cost when the time is right.

 

here we go...

 

I can't seem to find anything official from Toyota, but around 2008 the state of California began pushing heavily for extended oil change intervals (they claim only 70% of used oil is recycled). Some dealers here were pushing mobil 1 and 10,000 miles before that but they were going against official Toyota doctrine. Once 0W20 came out most started using 10,000 mile OCIs even though Toyota's FAQ specifically says cars that originally called for 5w20 (like the gen2) should stick to 5,000 miles.

Dealers were probably incentivized to stretch because most offered free service for X number of months/miles.

He said that he didn't have a good machine shop locally. I have a couple, but they're currently running turnaround times of about a month which is awfully hard to sell a customer. It is also very hard for a small, busy shop to deal with a car tying up a lift (or even parking space) for a month while they wait for a machine shop.

 

Gasket Masters business model is good (in that regard at least): doing engine pulls at your place.

 

Return fire, officer.
Honest.
Warning shots only.

 

I've seen engines that have lasted well beyond 200,000 miles. The last ICE car I had before the Avalon (we had a Nissan Leaf for a year in between) had some 700,000 miles on it, or at least I think it did as the odometer stopped working at 340,000 miles long before I got it. That car felt immortal... I changed the oil often, trying to hit it every 5,000 miles (although I didn't have an odometer, but 2 to 4 times a year depending on how much we drove).

But not just that car, lots of vehicles that have had 300,000, 400,000 or even more than a million miles on the engine. I've never known of any that didn't have their oil changed at least twice a year or every 5,000 miles max.

I also have my Prius I bought with 200,000 miles on it and it burns oil. My guess is the previous owner(s) didn't change the oil every 6 months or 5,000 miles (whichever comes first) like they should have.

 

Anyone who takes the time and money to change their oil every 5000 is probably meticulous about doing all the other required maintenance. So it isn't necessarily correct to attribute engine longevity to just frequent oil changes

Mike

 

True. But this is something I've seen on a lot of engines, and definitely seems very much connected to oil changes.

Oil has to get the grime out of the oil control rings. Once the oil looses it's ability to clean out that grime they gum up, then seize, then wear a groove in the cylinder wall. Two reasons to change oil are 1, it gets contaminated and can't hold the grime and 2, the additives, such as the detergents that clean off deposits, wear down and lose their ability to do their job. The solution is change your oil more often. In Toyota engines 9 times out of 10 it's seized oil control rings that are the obvious cause. What else is going to gum them up?

A clogged air cleaner won't do that. The dirt is already trapped in the air cleaner and getting less air into the combustion chambers isn't going to hurt anything.

Faulty spark plugs can't be it either. Unburned gasoline is a solvent, the kind of stuff you soak your rings in to un-gum them.

I highly doubt not changing your tranmission fluid or coolant or not checking your brake pads is going to have any effect.

The evidence leads to the truth. The only other thing that could be causing the problem is the wrong oil, one that doesn't have enough detergent or something else that gums up the rings. But there are very few things other things that can cause engine after engine to fail with the exact same problem, gummed up oil control rings.

 

Yeah, I saw the video in this article: Toyota Master Technician Argues Against 10,000 Mile Oil Change Intervals With Busted Engine Teardown | Carscoops

But, the car in question made 180K miles... Well, I will NEVER drive my car that far. Even before the pandemic, I was driving only 15Kmiles/yr. It would have taken 12 years. The car would have rust-related problems way before needing engine repair. The car in my region will not last longer than 15 years on a road due to corrosive road salt. Now, after the pandemic, I drive only 8Kmiles/year of which 60% are EVs without engine turning. The annual use of the engine on my PP is ~3200miles.

I will stick with every 12-mo (or every 8-9kmiles) oil change on my PP as recommended by Toyota. And, I have no plan to keep this car past 60Kmiles. So, I see absolutely no problem following Toyota recommended oil change interval of 10Kmiles or 1 year whichever comes first.

For reference, here are some articles that would support going with longer oil change intervals.

The Dirty Truth About How Often You Need Your Oil Changed | HowStuffWorks

You're Changing Your Oil Far Too Often if You Still Buy Into the 3,000 Mile Oil Change Myth

 

The Toyota 25k miles "free service" specifies just 2 oil changes, no more. The dealers here let owners claim those oil changes early, but when both are done, they are done. If one wants the oil changed every 5k miles, fine, but one must pay for #3 and beyond regardless of how few miles are on the odometer.

 

This all comes down to different circumstances. The Avalon is the first (well, first ICE) car that I've owned that at one point back when I bought it had less than 100,000 miles on it. If I can't make a minivan or EV work for me I'm keeping the Avalon as long as possible. I can only afford $180 car payments at most (would rather not have a car payment) and have done 30,000 miles in a year. I was doing that in a 1985 Volkswagen for 7 years before I got the Avalon and I replaced 0 engines and 0 transmissions in that car...

If you don't tend to shop for and take care of 10, 20, or +30 year-old vehicles for your wallet's sake then longevity probably isn't your concern; although your car could some day be my concern.

A new hybrid Sienna would be nice, but I'd have to move my family into it and live in it.

 

I agree with you that everyone's situation is different. If your goal is to keep the car running as long as possible, then more frequent oil changes may be warranted as cheap insurance. But that insurance protects only the engine. It does nothing for the corroding parts caused by road salt. In my years of ownership of cars, engine almost always outlasted the body... except for one vehicle, Dodge Grand Caravan which had blown engine at 80Kmiles ~6 years. Our 2005 Sienna lasted 12 years 100K miles, had a perfect engine, but rust ate up the underbody, so I had to junk the car.

When I first purchased the 2015 Gen3 Prius 7 years ago, I initially planned to keep it for a long time until the body falls apart. I was planning to do every 5Kmile oil change and every 30K transaxle fluid change but ended up trading it in for a 2017 Prius Prime. Then it was traded in for a 2020 PP and again was traded in for my current 2021 PP. The sum of car payments for those 4 cars in 7 years is ~$36K total after subtracting the trade-in values and ignoring tax and other fees. Considering that the resale value of my current 2021 PP is ~$30K, the real cost would be only $6K in 7 years. That would make the monthly cost to be ~$71/mo which is cheaper than your $180/mo budget. And the good thing is that every car I owned in the last 7 years was always under full warranty and routine maintenance was free by Toyota Care. I have a feeling that it would have cost me more if I had kept the original 2015 Gen3 and kept paying for a 5K mile interval oil change, a 30K mile interval transaxle fluid change, and other required routine maintenance.

 

That sounds good and all, but not easy to get into. So say I sell the Avalon or trade it in for $10,000 and pay off the remaining $2,000 or so I owe on it. That leaves me with $8,000 downpayment for something else. Mind you if I don't trade in I won't have any payments after a year.

So what do I put that $8,000 downpayment on? I have two ways to go here. One, downsize to keep the payments low. A 2022 Corolla goes for $20,500. So I'd have a loan for over $12,500 and in addition taxes and fees. Now my payment would be more than $200 per month (60 month loan), regardless of what the Corolla is worth in 5 years. We are also a growing family, and downsizing just would not be a good idea either.

So we could go with another hybrid Avalon, but since the Sienna is actually cheaper than the hybrid Avalon, let's go with that. A base Sienna goes for $37,000, more or less. That's about $540 per month for a 60 month loan or $400 for an 84 month loan.

I haven't even gotten an insurance quote yet for these vehicles.

And what good does a Toyota warranty or Toyota care do for me if I live two hours away from the nearest Toyota dealership? If the car breaks down under warranty I have to have it towed. I'm not sure how that would work out. Do all Toyota dealerships also work on hybrids? I had problems with the Nissan dealership in the same town that wouldn't make keys for my Leaf because they didn't work on EV's.

Maybe magically as I pay off either the Corolla, Sienna, or whatever I get with the $8,000 down payment, there's a chance another pandemic happens and this new vehicle ends up being worth more than what i bought it for and I can sell it and buy a brand new one and cut my payments down to $180 or less. Or the market flops when it comes time to sell it and now I have to cough up nearly full price for the next new vehicle.

But as I sit now:

Mind you that's $600 (first car) for 7 years and then second car (about $14,000 after interest), so will be about $15,000 at most in 11 years and the current trade in value is $17,000 if I go by prices on Autotrader, or $10,000 "trade in" if I go by KBB ($11,000 if it's to a private seller according to KBB), so would be somewhere between -$15 to $38 per month depending on what I could sell it for right now.

As much as I wish I didn't have to drive ol' rust buckets with deteriorating interiors, I don't think a new car would be affordable for me; not now, and possibly not ever.

 

A related question. Which non Toyota oil do you use in your Gen3 ICE engine?
What oil standard is required?

Anyway, I do not agree with the video, because there are a few problems from my side:
- oil longevity mainly depends on the use of a car. Using a car for short 2 miles trips vs long 50 miles trips on highway with cruise control set at 60 miles/h are wastly different things from oil wear perspective. I would advise the first one to do the oil change at 5.000 miles or even less, but the second one? Why? Also with current fully synthetic oils I doubt they go bad after 6 months. Unless this is used to cover those short trips use, than I agree with it.
- he states that oil is recycled and not dumped into the nature. So what? If the oil change is unnecesarry, that is a use of earth resources for nothing
- he states that many Toyota dealers do not use Toyota oil, but some sort of cheap oil. Interestingly this is a very loud message that I would expect/be gladfull for him to make when he was still working at Toyota dealership. But he only states it now, when he has an independent shop. Huh.

I would say that Toyota has an engineering problem and not the oil change interval problem since there are many other engines (non Toyota) that do not have any oil consumption problems with oil change interval of 9.000 miles or even more. The oils (especially fully synthetic) are just much better than the old mineral oil. I am using 9.000 miles service interval in my Skoda diesel and when I change the oil there is still some gold reflection at the top (the oil itself is black of course), while 30 years ago the mineral oil that you poured out at 3.000 miles was a black gunk almost. Though I do use the car 99% of the time only for long highway cruising at moderate speed. And these engines can do this without any problems also with service interval of 20.000 miles.