Oil change interval

Reading through the maint schedule I see the factory oil change interval is 10,000 miles or 12 months, unless you tow or drive in dusty conditions. Is this a new schedule for the new 3.5 engine or the same as previous years?

 

New for the 2016.

 

I'll stick to my 3-5k. Oil is cheap.

 

Many of toyotas vehicles are at 10,000 oil change intervals.

 

When I bought this truck the guy doing the paperwork for me stopped, looked puzzled, referenced a chart, and said the Tacoma is still the only Toyota to use standard oil, not synthetic. How can that be true?

 

Oil change every 7500 is about where I would be doing it these days. It is still ahead of schedule but not completely tossing away money and wasting oil by doing it every 3k.

 

every 3k anything longer and you risk varnishing the parts

 

Cheap insurance no more than 5k

 

Anyone who has ever disassembled an abused engine will attest to the damage old oil causes. 10,000 miles or 12 months is insane, especially in Florida heat and humidity. I realize the owners manual is for an average of all of North America but still, leaving those acids and contaminates inside the engine is a mistake.

 

Wow... Do they recommend synthetics at that mileage? I'm old school...just doesn't seem right to put conventional oils in for that long.

 

Actually the 2GR V6 has had a 10k OCI for sometime now. The Taco's engine is a version of the 2GR.....so, there you go.

 

Dealership I bought from said use synthetic, every 5k

 

Of course they did. How else would they get you to pay $60 for a $20 oil change.... Who goes to or listens to dealers these days?

 

False. I told him I do all my oil changes. He said cool, and that if it was his truck he would ignore the 10k and do it every 5k, with synthetic

 

He's obviously an idiot.

 

We have us a Toyota engineer here

 

Chuck is an engineer? I agree with him as I have pulled apart used engines. Some mistreated some not and you can tell the diff. But I'm no engineer.

 

even if you dont know how many miles you have driven or what the interval should be. When oil breaks down it changes color. So, in theory you can check for the darkening in the oil and change it at that time or when you start to see it turning

 

This is bullshit too.. the color of oil has nothing to do with anything

 

In my experience, fully synthetic oil darkens almost immediately. Much, much sooner than conventional oils. So I would not be comfortable using color change as a trigger to change oil.

Frank