First service on a 2021?

That is the opposite of what in service date means.

"The date of purchase usually marks when an asset is placed in service," - Placed-In-Service Definition
"A car’s in-service date relates to the original sale of the vehicle." - Autotrader - page unavailable
"Placed in service means the point in time when a fixed asset that can be depreciated is first placed in use." - Placed in Service Law and Legal Definition | USLegal, Inc.

Short trips can lead to more water getting into the oil because time at operating temperatures are short if they are even reached. The other side of that is the level of degradation and oxidation of the oil will be less because those happen at much faster rates when the oil is at higher temperatures.

How long does it typically take from production to being sold for a new car? How many miles on it? The time is measured in weeks, maybe a few months, and the miles are usually in counted in the tens, with 200 being a lot for a new car. When car owners are told short trips aren't good for the oil or car, it is for such trips that result in at least a magnitude more miles over what a new car sees before being bought.

Toyota's warranty and maintenance manual(2021 Prius Prime) says this about special operating conditions/severe duty, "You should perform these additional maintenance services only if the majority of your driving is done under the special operating conditions indicated. If you only occasionally drive under these circumstances, it is not necessary to perform the additional services." The severe duty new cars see in transit to the new owner might be a couple hundred miles over the oil's life of 10k miles. That is seeing the severe duty only occasionally.

Now, if a new car has sat on a lot for awhile, you could get the dealer to change the oil as part of the deal. If that truly concerns you. As long as the miles are still low, the amount of water in and degradation of the oil is going to be low.

The manual also says, "The warranty period begins on the vehicle’s in-service date, which is the first date the vehicle is either delivered to an ultimate purchaser, leased or used as a company car or demonstrator." There is no statement giving a different starting point for the maintenance schedule.

 

Again, from a warranty perspective, it's fine, but an honorable dealer would/should offer a free oil change if the car had sit there for a year, perhaps having gone through several test drives. I've seen "new" cars with over 200 miles on them, sales person claiming they acquired them during transfer. "New" cars can often be returned cars because the buyer fails to obtain credit. Therefore, from a maintenance perspective, I would do it counting from the manufacture date—at least for peace of mind. In my case, my Prius Prime was manufactured in October 2020, and I bought it in November 2020 with 5 miles on it—I was the first person to sit in it other than the transport and dealership people—so, there is hardly a practical difference, but I will still have the oil change sometime in October 2021.

 

Sorry, but I have never heard non-optional first service to be performed six months after the date of manufacture. I wonder, how many car owners even know when their car was manufactured? I for one have no idea, although I think there is a way to look it up using the VIN number.

Here you contradict yourself. But I have never heard of any case of a new car warranty being voided due to failure to perform routine service regardless of the timing. So, I am not worried about when I do my first or second, or third service or none at all.

 

Where all of those participants are just as UNqualified to refute the manufacturers recommendation as YOU are.
My opinion just accidentally matches Toyota's opinion and Ford and GM and BMW and VW.......on and on.

 

Date ordered is on the Toyota owners web page. I forgot to do a screen grab of that. Here's the "date of first use" for our current Prii.


I went back & found the order date for my Prime. That's right below the service date area. I don't see when it came off the assembly line.

Ditto.

 

Is the Date of First Use the date the car was sold for the first time as a brand new car? I wonder if all the cars Toyota made have the order date and what it really means. If it was not a special ordered from the factory, the order date for the dealer who sold the car may be different than the original order date.

I think the date in question is the manufactured date of the car, not the order date or first use. That's the date the car finished assembly and finished QC in the factory. I remember reading somewhere that the VIN number can be decoded to show the manufactured date. But a cursory web search did not find a specific manufacture date to be revealed from the VIN. It seems the only model year is coded in the VIN. https://parts.olathetoyota.com/blog/4585/how-to-decode-toyota-vin

 

The month and year of manufacture is on the drivers door decal/plate, with the VIN.

hey don’t be broke up, I didn’t know we had two glove boxes, for the first four~five years, lol.

 

Aha! That's it. I remembered something about the VIN, but it was actually on the door decal.

 

Thanks for all that info btw.

As to how many months a "new" car can sit on the lot, not sure if ours was a record, but AFTER our purchase (in November of 2010), I noticed one day, maybe a month later, that the build date was August 2009, lol. It's been champion so far. And yeah, not a demo: it was at the back of a display shed, dusty, with about 10 kms on the odometer.

I'm guessing a sale fell through: it had illuminated door sills. I was thinking they were standard on our model, but looking through the brochure later I see they were not. Somebody got cold feet?

Anyway, changed oil at 8K kms (or 6 months), per 3rd gen Canadian schedule.

 

If you miss an oil change by a few hundred miles or a month, say because of something came up in real life, do you believe that caused damage to the engine?

Doing an oil change for piece of mind, or to appease the engine spirits, is fine an individual, but isn't reason to make statements for everyone.

The manufacturer date could be on the sticker with the tire pressures, or other sticker under the hood. Considering Toyota's manuals state warranty clocks start with the first in service date, without another statement for the maintenance start date, it is safe to say they meant in service for starting the maintenance timer. The manuals for some of those VW owners even state the maintenance timing starts with the in service date.

The oil change intervals are generally a conservative number, going past it once in a while isn't an issue, which is what a new car sitting on lot for an extended time is.

In those rare cases, you could probably get a free oil change from a decent dealer. If that was a concern to you.

 

Yeah, Mendel commented on where to find the info. I just checked mine. Purchased in July with ODO reading 8 miles, so it really did not sit at the dealer's lot. I am still at the 3K mile mark now, but I will probably take it in for the free 5K service to a dealer to have them swap to the winter tires in Oct - Nov.

 

Or as in your case, far more unqualified.

Again, from a warranty point of view, unless an OEM requires it counting from the date of manufacture, it's fine, but from a maintenance perspective, it's better to count it from the date of manufacture for the various reasons I listed above. If in doubt, call your dealer, who is more qualified than you, and ask which is better (I was actually told that I didn't have to wait until the purchase date because the cars are typically manufactured and test-driven much earlier). Nevertheless, I choose to do it counting from the date of manufacture myself.

 

That's pretty funny.
Or pretty pathetic.......that you put that much faith in any car dealer.
Some of them don't even have a high school diploma.
Come to think of it......do YOU ??

 

This has got weird.

 

Ok, so with my build-date 15 months prior to purchase, and the canadian schedule being 8000 kms or 6 months, whichever comes first, the dealership should have rolled it into a service bay (with 10 kms on the odo) and changed the oil? Twice?

 

According to my dealer, this NOT required unless you actually meet the “extreme use” category.

I’m going in tomorrow morning for my first service and I’m at nearly 18000km (since I picked it up new with 94km on 22 April). If they even hint at giving me grief over this, they’ll never see me again (and in Quebec, with arguably the strongest consumer protection laws on the planet on my side, they’d be ill-advised to try). I’ll be sure to report back about any shenanigans.

 

Yes, to get the longest life from the engine. This might mean 10 extra miles before it dies.

On a more serious note, oil will degrade over time. How fast this happens will vary. The reaction will be fastest with the heat from a running engine. Of course, a new car with low miles hasn't subjected the oil to much heat. Maybe the water content of the oil might be on the high side because the engine isn't getting as warm. Then again, most water in the oil likely came from burning the gasoline.

More importantly, we are talking about a new car. There should not be anything in the crankcase to contaminate the fresh oil being poured in; no old oil or any gunk that will eventually deposit in a used engine. Essentially, the oil was transferred from one container to a clean one. A Volt, with little engine use, can go two years before calling for a change of synthetic oil. Oil in a new car has only been tainted by a few hundred miles of engine use isn't going to go bad faster than in a Volt.

11 years ago, Toyota had different recommendations for Canada.

 

This is a pretty extreme case. Given that you don't know how many times this engine was turned on and off and how the car was driven, I would request a free oil change before I drive the car off the lot. The cold engine is where you get the most fuel dilution and blowby gases mixed with the oil, both of which degrade the oil through nitration and sulfation and likely oxidation as well. Since the oil doesn't get to warm up to evaporate the blowby and fuel from the oil, they will degrade it substantially over a fifteen month period through slow but steady chemical reactions. There is also the Canadian humidity. On top of that, an unbroken-in engine is highly sensitive to the condition of the oil for its proper break-in and future health. So, by all means, I wouldn't just request for a free oil change—I would demand it!

 

LOL... You are suggesting @Mendel Leisk take back an 11-year-old car back to a dealer to demand a first oil change. BTW, AFAIK, his 2010 Prius Touring engine is still running as good as the first day he bought the car without the first oil change 6 months from the manufacture date.

 

For Canadian third gen, the Toyota Canada regular interval was 8k kms or 6 months. For fourth gen (your model) they’ve gone to 16k kms or 12 months (same as the States). Bit of a turn around? Keep in mind too: it’s your decision.