Oil- is there REALLY a difference?

Been running 5w-30 mobil 1 for nearly 3 months in my tacoma as it's so easy to find plus about $5 cheaper for a 5 qt jug. No ill effects yet from using it. You just can't find 0w-20 in the local stores here for less than $13 a quart. I have to travel a 50 mile round trip to wally world, and hope they have it in stock. I was there last week, and bought the last 5 qt jug of 0w-20 on the shelf. Hopefully by my next oil change I can find the rest.

 

Online ordering is so easy and available.

 

People get so pissed about 5w30 on here. lololololol

 

Pennzoil Ultra Platinum is GF-6A.

 

I love 5w30, semi-synthetic and use it everywhere I can including my mowers. Wish the engineers could have kept the spec in the 3rd gen as it would same me some moola!

 

You’re right, thanks for the correction. I referenced a datasheet that stated GF-5, but now see the datasheet is dated 2014, before the GF-6A standard came out. My bottles do indeed state GF-6A.

 

P.U.P. is great oil. It’s not that much more expensive yet it’s basically as good as boutique oil. I use it in my Tacoma and CX-5, which both run very nicely with it.

I personally don’t mind paying a bit extra per oil change to run higher-end oil. It may not matter that much, if at all, for reliability but since I use my Tacoma off road in hot weather, I want any extra safety margin I can muster. Higher-end oils do have more detergents and likely do keep the engine cleaner if that matters to anyone.

 

No reason not to use it in your Taco.

 

It's not recommended as a substitute for 0W20. It is in other builds for other countries outside the US market, but IDK how those engines are build or with the exact components to ours such as operating environment, (terrain type, weather) Atkinson, HPFP, lifters for timing/ VV adjustment. oil passages and such.

The 3.5l refers to the given overall outside dimensions, not the exact engine build.

So unless I know it's the exact build, I'm not bucking against the factory recommendation.

 

My 22 Pro was built in Mexico, the Mexican manual has been uploaded in another thread and said it’s fine to run as an alternative. The engine in my truck is the same as yours. You’re seriously nuking this.

 

If all is the exact same as our US build, then we're getting conned/scammed for some reason, but for now I just don't have any evidence to determine that it is safe for my US market built engine

 

Depends how long you want the vehicle to last

 

Running 5w-30 probably won’t hurt anything, especially in warmer temperatures. There’s a lot more to viscosity than the naming convention, and it’s not like 5w-30 is that much thicker.

But that doesn’t mean anyone besides a Toyota engineer can make blanket statements on the specific characteristics of the oiling and variable valve timing systems at different viscosities across multiple markets.

We can speculate and assert things all we want, but true concrete knowledge specific to the edge case parameters of this engine is not something easy to come by. I personally see no reason to run 5w-30 in mine. 0w-20 seems to perform great.

 

I've heard that the reason for our US build

$52 0W20 oil Toyota/ exxon mobil Case of 6 Quarts Full Synthetic TGMO SN 0W-20 Oil

0W20 oil recommendation is for better fuel mileage too. But other countries pay more per gallon than US south of the border, except maybe for Mexico who may have plenty of cheaper oil. So if that be so, they would benefit more than US by using 0W20, but they don't.

I know you can use it (5W20) in a pinch as recommended in the OM, but only every other service, so again, IDK enough or are courageous enough to buck the factory engineers. I would prefer to use semi synthetic and just change it every 5k

 

Agreed. Vehicles often tell you what oil they like if you listen…

I have an old Gen 2.5 CR-V with K24A engine whose manual calls for 5w-20. With 189,000 miles, it definitely runs smoother on 5w-30, and I have no qualms about doing this.

My Yamaha Tracer calls for 10w-40 or 20w-50 but runs like garbage on the thicker stuff. It ran profoundly different and clearly unhappy on 20w-50 the summer I tried it.

My 2016 Mazda CX5 manual straight up gives an ambient temperature chart for using 0w-20 vs. 5w-20 vs. 5w-30. I love Mazda, it’s like they knew how to kill these stupid internet debates from the start.

Regarding the Taco… why not try to get the best mpg possible? Running a good GF-6A oil is going to provide fantastic protection at 0w-20. It’s not accurate to assume thicker oils always provide more wear protection. If it’s very warm, 5w-20 is stated to be acceptable.

But at the end of the day, if you pay THIS much attention to oil, you’re probably doing plenty right.

 

I like Mazda over the years too, and like the chart and alternate recommendations. TOYOTA used to be like that too, now they seem to have gotten prude lol!

 

My ATV gives that same kind of chart. For my Taco, I wouldn't hesitate to run 5w20 or 5w30 in the summer. In fact, I have 6 quarts of Redline 5W20 sitting on the shelf from my Ram and I will absolutely toss that in when my next oil change is due in the spring.

 

Mines on its second 5w-30 fill. Its what Im gonna run , until I get rid of it. Zero difference it how it runs. Its for CAFE

 

^^ And this is how we get real world data and to the truth of the matter

 

Looking at these guys doing their own real world oil testing on an old carbonated engine, it maybe easier to understand the reason a modern engine lubrication requirements are so different than before (testing starts around the 7minute mark).

Now if they would have had a modern EFI engine, it would most likely have started right up and self destroyed itself from oil starvation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNzSQxd4mzU