10K oil changes are BAD! ??

yes, many here recommend 5,000 or 6 months

 

Toyota wants you keep buying new car from them after 36mos warranty over. As soon you car Toyota 36mos Warranty, buy a new one.

 

10,000 mile oil change intervals are okay if you drive primarily on the highway at moderate speeds in a temperate climates & topography, but the book says to use 5,000 mile intervals for "severe" duty, which includes pretty "normal" things like:

dusty conditions
high loads (high speeds, climbing mountain grades, towing, using a roof rack, etc)
very cold weather
short trips


Hybrids especially are prone to building up varnish & carbon (which clog smaller oil ports & passageways). In a conventional car, if you got off the freeway after driving 85mph for a few hours, your engine would idle as you coasted off the ramp and putter along as you drove to a gas station or rest stop. Your Prius engine comes to a complete stop the moment you drop below ~40mph so the oil doesn't get a chance to circulate as it gradually cools. We used to have "turbo timers" to keep turbocharged cars idling for 30seconds or more after turning off the ignition so you could walk to work or school without having oil coke up in your turbo.

Likewise for short trips (or extremely cold weather) your conventional car might barely get up to operating temperature for a little while. The Prius will turn off the engine at stop lights even when it is not fully warm. Heating oil to operating temperatures is important because that's when many contaminants evaporate (fuel, water, etc).

 

My oils going thru so fast 10K is great. Ina few I'm on second engines w over 300K no oil related fails yet. Good luck

 

I happened to watch that a few days back. One thing, he seems to be walking a tight-rope, being affiliated with Toyota. His disclaimer for the Toyota USA 10K recommendation, and I'm paraphrasing, goes something like this: "Folks, this is the bare minimum", a bit of a cop-out.

In comparison, for 3rd gen, Toyota Canada recommended 6 months or 8000 kms (5000 miles). With the advent of 4th gen they align with Toyota USA.

Of interest: for 4th gen Toyota Canada also strips all mention of service intervals out of the paper documentation (and pdf's) that accompany the new cars. To see the schedule you need to look online, event by event.

 

5,000 miles > 10,000 miles.
10,000 miles > Icantrememberwhen.

Actually the best predictor of whether or not your car is going to live long enough to legally buy beer in the USA has more to do with the oil CHECK interval, NOT the oil CHANGE interval.
There are people who check their filters and fluids regularly and there are people who do not.

YOU can either be your own, best service manager or you can toss the key fob on the desk down at the dealership’s “service” department and hope that they will be gentile with you.

Just remember……hope is not a plan.

For probably 80-90 percent of the folks out there, it doesn’t really matter.
If you trade out your new car for another new car every 4 years or so, why bother with worrying about it.
Just get the oil changed whenever you happen to think about it and fix things when they break.
Trade the car in and get another new one.

Me?
I usually keep cars well past the 10 year mark, so I can’t afford NOT to change my oil out every 5,000 miles, and check the oil level much more often than that.
I check my fluids about every 1,000 miles and change air filters (engine and cabin) more often than I “have to.”

YMMV….

 

Yur >'s should be <'s?

I always struggle with those buggers too; change mine above, twice, while typing this...

 

Oh?

My intentions were > = 'better than'
and < = not as good as.

It's just me being me again.

I could blame 10 submarine patrols, 2 surface ship tours, and 2 involuntary, year-long vacations to warm sandy places for my cracked sense of humor, but truth be told it was a little warped from the factory.

We've been running G3's in our fleet for >10 years (see what I did there?)
We ALWAYS use 5,000 mile OCIs.
We've NEVER gotten rid of a G3 before it was either more than 10 years old or had more than 300,000 miles on the odometer.
There are still four 2010's within 100 miles of my office, and three of them have >200k miles.
Two of them used to be MY cars.
ALL of them have their original head gaskets.
Probably for the same reason that YOURS does.

So....
What does this all mean?

Not much for most people.
Maybe a lot more for somebody driving a G3, but remember that they stopped making G3s about 70 years ago, in car years. That sort of means that how long any particular G3 is going to keep running has already been baked into the cake.

A 70-year-old person can start eating right and exercising, and stop eating things made by Hostess and McDonalds.....and it MIGHT add a year or two to their lifespan but there's no such thing as retroactive maintenance, nor despite all the ads......diet, or exercise.

 

Ah ok.

 

I had heard about oil change interval threads going religious, but maybe I hadn't seen it before.

 

I've been 10000 on my two cars for many years, but after watching that video a few days ago, I think I'm going to go the every 5000.

 

Or 6 months, whichever comes first.

 

I absolutely love oil change interval threads. We tend to keep our vehicles a long time with a lot of miles. My current daily driver is 13 years old. The vehicles we own leaves the family at up to 250k miles. The oldest vehicle in the family is a 2005 Prius. Oil changes are cheap, easy, and quick to do and so is fast food. But it is not a reason to consume more than is necessary. We drive the American average of 12-15k miles a year.

Having said all that, we follow the owners manual. Started with a 1992 Honda Accord on dino oil at 7500 miles OCI. This increased to 10k on a 2003 Honda Civic. Surprisingly, still on 5w20 dino. Then moved to fully synthetic at 10k miles on the 2012 Prius. There was that odd period where Toyota was sued for oil sludge and our 2006 Corolla required 5k OCI. There is some oil burn but it's not enough to require top up for the up to 1 year OCI. YMMV.

Statistically, some vehicles will fail using 10k miles OCI. We may make the connection that 5k miles OCI will result in engine failures. But how much fewer? Switching to 3k miles OCI, there may be fewer still, theoretically speaking and oil changes are cheap insurance.

I'm comfortable with 10k miles OCI on synthetic because I was satisfied by the performance with 10k miles OCI on dino which was bolstered by performance on 7500 miles OCI. Engine tolerances and oil formulas are constantly improving. Your engine may or may not die if you go 10k miles OCI. Nothing wrong with peace of mind with 5000 OCI.

This video with it's anecdotal data point of one does not convince me to change my ways. In fact, something about the video doesn't add up to me. The dealer insists on 10k OCI? Really? Every Toyota dealer in my albeit tiny sample set has insisted on 5k. A doctor that drives 80 miles a day? He can't afford to move closer to the hospital? Not calling it a lie but the perverbial grandma that drives her vehicle once a week on Sunday is asking.

 

What’s a 36 month warranty? 10 year or 100k here

 

When I had my 2017 Three Touring I would DIY the oil changes at~7500 miles. Now that I own a 2022 Venza Hybrid I'll change the oil (0W-16) every 5,000 miles or every 6 months, whichever comes first. I'll let Toyota do the ToyotaCare changes at 10K and 20K, and I'll do the 5K, 15K, 25K, 30K, etc. myself. Currently at 2,500 miles on the odometer.

The Venza is a very nice car, BTW...

 

Not for the ICE, it's only 6yr/60K miles IIRC.

The 10yr/100K warranty was for the hybrid battery and the inverter. The inverter warranty just went up recently due to the class action lawsuit.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

In UK additional year per service after first 3 up to 10 years. Not just hybrid system that’s covered as “battery cover” up to 15 years. Bodywork is 12 years.

 

Maybe the perfect storm was the 10K miles AND low-tension piston rings.

 

It's important to remember that "10k miles" is not what the Prius manual says. "10k miles unless..." is what the Prius manual says. As ToyXW pointed out earlier in the thread:

So before you can say you're following the owner's manual for a Prius, you're on the honor system to decide whether the 10k or 5k conditions apply to you, and then follow that.