Wisconsin Tacomas and bad financial advice

Factory installed the main bolts top down. This makes it a bitch to remove. Install new bolts bottom up.

Secure your steering wheel before you start.

Replace secondary steering shaft while you're in there (it's the one that connects to the steering box itself)

New jam nuts. Get a yearly alignment so your stuff doesn't corrode and freeze up.

Despite appearance is, everything is fairly simple and everything comes out easily. If it's not coming out easily, take a step back, take five come back to it. There's no need to force anything with these.

Unless you're doing a steering rack on a third gen, in which case... Be prepared to blow something up.

Girl at work bought a Taco about 6 months ago and has had me work on it. And she's um.... Not bad to look at either. Or hang out with. Or play volleyball with. Or ask out....






Turns out she bats for the other team. Oops

5k, 6 months. Full synthetic, no excuses. Use OEM filters.

 

Take your time. Just in case we run out of topic ideas: the holy roman empire was neither holy, nor roman, nor an empire.

 

10K is fine for a lot of people.

 

10K versus 5K is the difference between needing a short block at 180,000 mi on a Camry or having the cleanest engine in town at 300,000, mi.

https://youtu.be/TevK-u3vkx4?
si=87mG6rHeOidnRzwN

 

What we really should talk about is how often a person should change the air in their tires. Old air is a silent killer just waiting for an opportunity!

 

Flying me out?

 

How do you get all the old air out, so the new air doesn't get contaminated?

Instead of changing the air, just get new tires.

 

I forgot that you moved!

...but my comment still stands.

 

Lol.

If a Camry needed an engine at 180,000 miles, I can guarantee you there was more involved than the oil change interval. I'm not going to give that guy a click just to find out, though.

I know some folks consider that guy like the holy gospel, but I think I'll go with what the engineers decided.

There are plenty of people running around with more miles than that doing 10,000 mile changes. For example, my 2003 4Runner that got the oil changed every 10,000 miles, and ran like new at 257k miles.

Also, note that I said a lot of people. Based on the manual, a lot of drivers should be doing 5000 mile changes also. And, based on the abuse my 2019 gets, it gets 5000 mile changes. But, if I did mostly highway driving, minimal towing and hauling like I did with my 2003, I'd be doing 10,000 mile changes on this one as well.

 

Is this like the transmission where a partial change is preferred? In that case, I think we're all in good shape since we tend to let about half of the air out of our tires and then put new stuff back in a couple times a year.

 

Drive the Taco back.

Or, better yet, make a road trip up to Wisconsin sometime and join us on one of our trips!

 

Definitely. I don't doubt that there will be times we drive back (not just for the wedding) and I will do my best to coordinate something. Now that the wedding is over, there is nothing on the books for now.

Similarly, we should try coordinating when you're down this way.

 

10k wasn't decided by the engineers. It was decided by marketing. Because of a big dick measuring contest started by Honda and GM and the late 90s, everyone pushes for the longest service intervals. Possible they can claim they have the most reliable cars. In reality, synthetic oil under used doesn't survive past 5000 miles. It does. Its job incredibly well but like all fluids, it wears out under heat and stress. If you're not driving it hard, 7500 usually good, especially for lightweight cars like a Honda fit. But at the end of the day... Marketing decided 10,000. Not the engineers and not the factory trained text. We tear engines down way too often and we have way too many people telling us they don't need services when we can clearly see they do need work. At the end of the day you're going to have outliers. You're going to have people with a four seven who did 10,000 mi oil changes for 300,000 and the engine was perfect. But for everyone that's running perfectly... How many aren't? How many ended up in junkyards are had to be sold swapped? Those numbers are unavailable. But I see too many of them coming in skipping regular schedule maintenance and having issues. And frankly, oil changes are cheap. Doing your oil every 5000 is great. Insurance against engine problems farther down the line.

But also at the end of the day it's everyone's own personal car and their own bank account. If they can't afford it they can't afford it. And if they choose not to, then they're rolling the dice. But that's pretty much. Whatever decision in life is, you're one bad dice roll away from getting the bones kicked out of you

Anyway, cheers and happy Friday

 

FWIW,

My brother was an ASE certified mechanic. He specialized in rebuilding transmissions, so yeah, he was pretty expert.
He often drove vehicles that most of us would send to the scrap yard. He neglected the shit out of damned near everything he owned, he put all his energy into fixing everyone else's vehicles, so his came last.
The one thing he insisted upon though...
He religiously changed the oil at 3k, even when using Mobile One.
Probably overkill, but it's the one thing he swore by.

 

True. You're better off doing your own research, and going with whatever you're comfortable with, rather than what you read on the internet or what the salesman tells you.

For sure! I'll definitely be in touch if I ever decide to venture out of the Midwest, lol!

Toyota has been recommending longer service intervals since at least the 80s. And, that was with conventional oil

Also, there's plenty of blackstone analysis to support the fact that longer intervals are fine.

I'd be willing to bet that any 2UZ 4runner that's sitting in a junkyard with a bad motor is more likely due to a snapped timing belt than 10K oil change intervals.

It's funny, I threw that out there as a joke, and in the back of my head thought it would turn into another stupid oil change interval debate. And, here we are.


Also, happy Friday to you, as well!

 

Funilly, enough, Toyota branded oil from the dealerships is in fact mobile one.

 

Also, to add to what I have said about oil change intervals; I would also go with a shorter interval if I didn't drive a lot. I'd change it twice per year, minimum, regardless of mileage.