Oil Change / Filter

Just go to the dealer and buy the Toyota filter, or get it on line in a box of 10 for less. About $5.50 each at a dealer and $4.50 each on line, someone will post where or you can do a search.

As you know from your previous topic this is not a warranty issue, it's just that the manufacturer of any given vehicle usually has the best filter for that vehicle.

What kind of oil do you plan to use?

 

so you're planning to change your oil at 3,200 instead of 5,000?? I'm thinking about that also, i just think 5,000 it quite a long time to wait to change the first change, but there are literally about a hunderd posts on here about oil changes, etc.

 

Time to forge ahead into the 21st century! 5000 is actually pretty conservative, 3k-ish is just totally needless for a healthy, modern engine. Of course, Jiffy Lube and their ilk hope you'll never figure this out. But hey, please don't take my word for it. Check out the Bobistheoilguy.com (BITOG) Used Oil Analysis results sub-forum (BITOG UOAs--Click Here). Here you will see page after page of hard evidence that shows how well, and how long, modern oils perform in anything but the oldest and sickest engines. Toyota engines, not too surprisingly, do very very well in the UOAs. Click here to see what happened when I ran so-called "German Castrol" (the Made in Germany 0w-30 grade Syntec) in my wife's Sequoia for 13 months and over 10,000 miles. As you can plainly see, this oil was barely half-way used up. Particularly with synthetics, the old 3/3 oil change is a monumental waste of resources, time, and money. Now, that said, since I'd prefer to avoid a wty fight more than I'd like to take my oil to the n-th degree of endurance, in my own Prius, I'll be staying with the 5k change. Once the wty is up, I'll set my oil change interval by how my UOAs look.

 

Kudos on ekpolk for supporting BITOG. PriusChat archives include several Prius UOA and I look forward to seeing yours added to that list.

When I do extended oil change intervals in 2001 Prius using Mobil 1 synthetic, I get similar results to what you posted with the Sequoia - wear metals stay low, viscosity stays good, and TBN gets used up sometime between 10k and 15 k miles. Whether other Prius drivers chose to follow this path is up to them. Since buying UOA provides unique engine data not otherwise available, it is worth noting that extended oil change intervals hold the cost down somewhat.

As far as the value of an early first oil change in Prius, I also note that is seems to be only those first oil changes where elevated copper (sometimes iron, silcon and aluminum) show up. Apparently not to worrying levels, but I have no objection if somebody wants to get that first oil out ahead of schedule.

 

tochatihu:

I'm a little over a month from my first Prius UOA. When I get the results, I'll post them here, as well as on BITOG. I'm very curious about how this one will turn out. As I've mentioned in other threads, this "new" Prius is an 04 that had 15k miles when I bought it. Its oil filler looked clean, but OTOH, you can't see a lot down there in the 1NZ engine (my last car's engine, a VQ35DE, allowed an easy view of the top of the head and driver's side exhaust cam -- oh well...). The dealer had obviously changed the oil, filling it with clean bulk dino. I promptly replaced it with M1EP 5w-30. I realize that the EP is overkill when I'm planning to dump at 5k anyway, but at least in theory, if there's some easy cleaning to be done, this oil should have a slight advantage. We'll see.

Ed:

I wouldn't criticize anyone for performing an early oil change (except in a Honda), though I think the early changes, even with dino, have become largely unnecessary. It is suspected by many that Honda is factory filling with a moly-heavy oil, targeted specifically to enhance the initial wear in. Honda specifically tells its buyers NOT to change oil until the first interval is up. I would love to see their precise explanation of why they make this recommendation. That said, it's pretty much implied that their engineers have decided that whatever wear-in material makes its way into the oil is not going to do any harm. In a non-factory rebuild, I'd be doing the early changes, no question about it. But hey, I saved myself the worry about this problem by buying used this time.

 

Go with a bigger filter. Mobil M1-209 or K&N HP-2009. Looks a lot bigger but worth it.

Wayne

 

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I believe that I'm a little odd, I always change the oil in a new car as soon as I get it home. I have cut open the oil filters and looked in the drain pan have found foundry sand and small metal flakes and other gunk. I just think is a good idea to get that out of the engine right away. Then I usually do a 3000 mile break in and switch to synthetic. I've always used wix filters in the past but recently have changed to mobile1 filters as its getting hard to find the wix (dana) brand anymore. I've looked at the amsoil dual filter arrangement (is getting hard for me to get under the car these days) that allows for easy filter change in high mileage oil changes. Has any one tried a dual filter conversion yet?