Interesting read on gear oil

At 38K miles I replaced my front, rear and transfer case oil with amsoil 75w-90 after some research.

the current state of affairs on gear oil selection is still fairly controversial with the proper Toyota weight gear oil being very expensive and still hard to come by.

I found this article recently that puts a unique spin on contemporary knowledge with some reviews on popular synthetic brands.

https://eastcoastgearsupply.com/files/PDF Files/ecgs-gear-oil-recommendation1.pdf

TLDR: Buy cheap Dino + additive package and change often (</= 30K interval)

 

I've always used amsoil severe duty...if its good enough for the military...

 

I don't think its a radical idea to suggest that frequent oil changes, synthetic or dino, is better for the long term health of your gears than filling it with fancy synthetic once and forgetting about it for the next 50-100k miles.

I went with Amsoil SVG because I because it has the lowest pour point of gear oils that I looked at, at -43C/-45F. The Lucas 80w90 isn't far off at -36C/-33F, but it gets that cold often enough in Alaska that I wanted the colder rating.

 

So we're supposed to change differential oil on a new truck at 500mi?

What dino oil do they recommend? They only mention Lucas.

 

Beuller..........?

 

The only controversial one is the xfer case right? Unless Toyota drops their price on their xfer case oil, imma stick with ravenol

 

The diff break-in period is 500 mi according to the Toyota owner's manual. Intuitively you'd want to change the oil after break-in. I did just that, laid a foam sheet on top of the ice in my driveway mid-February and went to town...

Keep in mind ECGS is a differential upgrade/build shop, and that paper is just an opinion. How much controlled comparison testing did they do? Any instrumentation to collect oil temperature? Or is it anedotal shop experience (albeit collected over many years)? Not known.

 

Unfortunately from what i've been told as of yet there is no direct sub for toyotas transfer case oil in these gen3 trucks. Use of anything else isn't recommended.

 

I haven't looked at the research / data lately, but I think ravenol comes close and relatively cheap so imma stick with it.

 

I missed that in the manual. Im over by 1k, gonna do it today. 4qts for gen 3 I believe.

 

And you will have no problem. Where the problems occur is A) When people think they know more and B) When people decide to run it for 250K miles with no maintenance. Personally, my interval is 50K miles on those fluids. My duty cycle is light. When I used to tow a lot more than now I changed it every 30K. However, I always have used the OEM fluids. Dino is fine. Amsoil is fine. Just change it.

 

I'm not trying to argue but I'm wondering if any of those opinions are based on science or testing, of any kind. They don't explain what makes Royal Purple the worst. They may very well be right, but how did they reach that conclusion?

I do agree with changing the gear oil more frequently which is what I do. My brother on the other hand doesn't believe in this. His 2000 F-150 had 300K miles and the only times he ever swapped diff fluids is when replacing a seal(maybe once or twice the entire life of the truck).

 

They recommend Lucas.

 

Based on the information in the white paper, ECGS basically ran the truck for 30 minutes and drained the diff to see how thin the oil is. Repeat with another oil brand.

 

Imo, its not necessary till at least 30k miles. When i did my gen1 tundra it took less gear oil in the rear differential than these trucks. The oil that was drained was like still like new. It was the front differential that looked dirty every time it was replaced even though 4wd wasn't used very often, so i don't know the reason for that.

 

Folks are confusing the easy driving break-in period with a non-existent fluid change requirement.

That said, I would do the first driveline swap early. Mine was at 7k and the 30k check looked like virgin lube. I will swap them at 60k.

 

Interesting. Would have been nice if they had sent the samples off to Blackstone labs instead. But that wouldn't be cheap.

 

I want to trust that stuff, but I get itchy feelings about Costco and Amazon house brands also. Completely irrational, though.


That said, I have heard that RP isn't so good on the consumer side. But, their industrial and racing fluids are top notch. Zero direct experience though.

 

Where on earth did you guys find that diff gear oil should be replaced at 500 miles? I’ve been all over my owners manual and service interval list and no where does it say that. It has diff oil inspections at various tens of thousand mile points. Even the referenced article doesn’t say replace at 500 miles.

it amazes me How someone can misinterpret something, throw out an erroneous statement, and folks fall in line like lemmings on TW.

I might... might, replace my differential oil at 30,000 miles. Or higher.

 

The break-in period is 500 miles. That's in the owner's manual's break-in section. (Engine is 1000 miles, rear diff 500 miles.) Whether you feel changing the oil after break-in is necessary is up to you. I put in 75W140 synthetic at 500 miles because I spin tires and go sideways both on- and off-pavement.