Prius 2010 Oil Change Interval Revised? Not yet... (closed)

The 5000 mi service interval is not an absolute number. There is a degree of flexibility on it where IMO 6000 miles is the upper side. 8000 miles is very ???? But the only issue is 'did the delay in service cause the warranty defect?'

 

Remember that SET is separate and distinct from Toyota. It has no direct relationship with Toyota other than it sells Toyota's vehicles. In some cases SET is a competitor ( WorldOmni vs TFS ) to parts of Toyota. SET offers it's own incentives, accessories and parts for most Toyotas'.

Now SET also has a very close relationship to Toyota in that it is Toyota's No 1 customer in NA.

I'd estimate that this is an SET document rather than a TMS document. But due to SET's close relationship as TMS's top customer SET might be receiving an early heads up on an imminent change.

Again, caution.

 

If this is applied to all Toyota vehicles, its welcome news. First of all, Toyota was very foolish trying to upcharge a synthetic 0W-20 at 5,000 mile or 6 month intervals, as the base maintenance costs will far exceed the average car

Second of all, it's not the first time Toyota backpedaled on something. Case in point is my 2007 FJ Cruiser. The manual states that for temps over -18 C, the rear axle needs a SAE 90 gear oil. For temps below -18 C, 80W-90.

Well, an 80W-90 is too thick for temps colder than -30 C. If an FJ owner were to follow the manual to the letter, that means a gear oil change twice a year, and leaving the FJ parked once the outside temps were colder than -30 C

So, most FJ owners just do the common sense thing and change over to a synthetic 75W-90, which is what most rear wheel drive trucks now run (Some, such as the Tundra and Sequoia, run a synthetic 75W-140)

Except some dealerships - and Toyota itself - got really pissy with some owners who brought along bottles of synthetic 75W-90 to a dealership, expecting that dealership would use the oil. "Warranty void" and other such nonsense was written on the service order!

I'm now wondering if the rear axle failures of early build 2007 FJ Cruisers had anything to do with the factory fill of straight SAE 90 gear oil? That viscosity is impossible to find in North America, and should *never* be used in winter.

One result was that Toyota issued a TSB that suddenly changed the gear oil specs for the FJ Cruiser: they now require their "special" synthetic 75W-85. That's not a typo, rather than a commonly available synthetic 75W-90 gear oil, they require a Toyota 75W-85. I'm assuming this special gear oil, much lighter than the straight 90 from the factory, won't void the powertrain warranty

Some FJ owners have reported being charged $85 a QUART for this stuff! When I got my FJ, I bought a 20 litre pail of Mobil Delvac Synthetic 75W-90, on a per-litre basis around $6

I'm all for using the synthetic oil and having more of a "European" oil change interval (All Toyotas in the EU have a 12 month or 10,000 mile oil change interval). Thing is, I tried Mobil 1 0W-20 in my FJ, as I have quite a bit left over from when I had my Prius

With my Prius, I had excellent used oil analysis reports, even up to 10,000 miles. With my FJ, the oil had high nitration and had thickened to a xW-30 range, after only 4,000 miles.

With my FJ, I had the best results running Mobil 1 European Car Formula 0W-40. I wonder if Toyota will insist I use their "special" synthetic 0W-20 now?

 

Wow! if this is official, including for my region etc, then that is a BIG deal for me!

Get the solar panel production up, and I'm back in the market. Hope the baby likes cross-country road trips. ;-). There may be a trip from Florida to Alaska in the cards...

 

Before going off on Toyota....CAUTION....until confirmed this has nothing to do with Toyota USA.

 

Are you suggesting that Toyota did NOT backpedal on the FJ Cruiser gear oil requirement??

 

Right on, see you when you get here!

 

I think he's suggesting we don't know they've backpedaled here.

 

Wasn't it obvious that the 5,000-mile interval was just an initial tryout?

Perhaps having been driving Prius for 9 years, I've just become accustom to their revision strategy. The practice playing it conservative at first should be well known. After all, that is the very approach being taken with the plug-in option.

0W-20 using a cartridge combined with the trap-door access is simply too much change to deal with all at once. The american market is quite unpredictable. Heck, even their own dealers are far from consistent.

8,000 miles between changes with my Iconic Prius using 5W-30 synthetic was no big deal. So, now with the 2010 having a larger engine working even less, I just assumed other owners were thinking the same thing as me...
.

 

Set is the distributor but the dealerships are independent businesses that are franchisees of Toyota. Warranties are honored nationwide with the dealers being compensated by Toyota. Isn't that correct?

If so, you would think that only TMS could set warranty policy. It would be weird for SET to distribute this info if it didn't originate from TMS. The statement that the owners manual will be amended also supports the change being from Toyota. This is assuming that the document is genuine.

 

A warranty is only an insurance policy. It's a cost vs risk vs benefit calculation. SET can very well issue its own warranty on Toyota vehicles because SET has its own finance / insurance arm, Omni.

We and others offer a lifetime guarantee on Toyota engines ( ICE's ) separate and distinct from anything that TMS offers. SET can determine it's own risk vs benefit vs cost ratios on new Toyota vehicles requiring synthetic oil. SET can determine that the use of synthetic oil only requires 10000 mi OCI's and SET can agree to cover any warranty issues that Toyota might decline up to 60,000 miles ( very very very very very few IMO ).

It's actually a good sales tool for dealerships in SET...for a price. What's the cost of a 0W-20 oil change on a Prius at the subject dealer? $50? $95? $105? IDK.

 

Do you work for Toyota engineering? Have you torn apart the oil at 5K, 10K etc in detail?

It seems Toyota (with a very long power train warranty) would know what they are doing - I know I'm sticking with whatever they say.

If the first service is official at 10K, it not very environmentally sound to go off at 3K or 5K {IMHO}

 

I'm sorry if this is explained in some other thread--I'm jumping into this thread from the "iSpy" page of PC.

Can someone explain to me what SET and TMS stand for?

 

SET = Southeast Toyota - a US Region like Gulf States or Mid-Atlantic.

TFS = Toyota Financial Services

TMS = Toyota Motor S?? - never seen it used before but probably refers to Toyota Corporate.

 

I called my service dept yesterday{09 04} and asked questions about
this subject since my auto care coupon booklet just arrived and had first oil change at 15,000 miles and then it goes back mto 5,000 after the first change. Service manager says to disreguard the coupons and change at every 5000 miles as stated in owners manual. Your guess is good as mine what to do...

 

TMS = Toyota Motor Sales... the sales arm

 

Thanks for the clarifications. DeadPhish's info makes more sense now.

 

I did check with our Service Mgr today before the above series of posts. He checked. There's nothing about a revised OCI there as of today.

 

My Dealer had no info about extended Oil Change Intervals this morning (Sat)
when I stopped by there. They looked for a notice in the on-line areas that they
normally find such things from Toyota.

Also, I believe they give me lifetime free oil changes with their inflated
purchase price of the Prius III (with Nav) and they know to use 0W-20 oil.
They say that one 2007 model car required (or recommended) 0W-20 oil
so they have had it available for some time. (Capistrano Toyota/Scion).
However, I have not yet used their service department (only 1200 miles
so far), so I do not know the quality of their service.

But, it would be very nice to hear that the oil-change interval is 10k miles,
not the rather excessive 5k miles.

When does the oil for the "Power Transfer Unit" get changed?
Is it a separate system?

Thanks, Gary