2nd Gen 4.0 Oil

I have been running 5W30 Syn. Blend oil as that's what I've found in the service manual. Performance has been fine, I've had the truck almost two years, but am starting to a little bit of engine noise, no knocking or anything, just a "lifter click" noise. My idea was to put 10W30 Full Synthetic in for the next oil change, but am worried that I will tank my MPG even further. Does anyone have experience with this. Keep in mind that this truck has 280000 miles on it, so in my mind it would make sense that the engine would make a little noise from wear.

 

1GR-FEs tend to be a bit noisy, exactly as you described. I wouldn’t change the oil weight. Just go with a high quality full synthetic high mileage oil. I recommend Pennzoil Platinum High Mileage. If you want to take it a step further, you could send a sample to Blackstone Labs or a similar oil analysis company. They will give you a full breakdown of your oil and overall engine health, and they can also advise if you should change anything like the oil weight or type. It’s a very worthwhile investment in my opinion.

 

5W-30 - change regularly

 

the 10W rating is for cold conditions, it doesnt change how the oil performs outside of winter cold starts. There's zero reason to buy 10W30 anymore. It's thicker only when you don't want it to be thicker.

This isn't a perfect graphic for tacoma but it kinda shows my point.



Lifter tick is fairly normal with the 4.0, you could try to do an engine flush but it could result in plugging up the pick up screen.

I'd suggest just keep running what you're running, it's good forever.

 

Gotcha! Thank you all for the input. I wasn’t worried about the tick, just wasn’t sure if that would be a helpful plan or not. @tacokarl , I haven’t heard of sending off a sample to a lab before, that’s actually really cool. @Bishop84 thanks for the info!

 

My brother in law sold his 315K 2003 4Runner V6 YEARs ago. It has sold multiple times since then and likely has 400K plus. Ran perfect like a buttered pig.

He used the cheapest 5w-30 oil available. . chevron, quaker state, whatever. Sun blend and Synthetic is a waste of money.

Like others have said, it's a noisy V6 unlike the 3MZ for example. You're good to go, 280K is nothing

 

It comes down to personal choice. You could run the cheapest 5w30 (in spec) that you can find and will be fine. My daily driver is a fleet car. The current oil we are running is NAPA 5w20 syn blend with Wix filters. It is working fine. Vehicles get run HARD. Previously I have seen recycled 5w30 and Wix filters when we were driving Crown Vics. Again, no oil issues then either. As I side note, I looked at the bulk tranny fluid we are using. It is some abomination (my opinion) that meets practically every spec known to man according to the label. I would NEVER put it in my truck. But again, we have no transmission issues overall that our mechanics can point a finger at.

Most of us here are a bit more picky, and tend to be brand loyal. I myself have ran Mobil 1 since first change. Superb oil, no complaints to 85K. I will contine to use it in my other vehicles. That being said, I just swiched my truck to Idemitsu 5w30. It is a world class oil, but not well known in the US. The US product is blended just down the road from me, so I wanted to give it a try. Only a few hundred miles in, so I dont have any real experience with it yet. Overall reviews are good, and stats look ok. I will be posting Blackstone analasys in the futrue so we shall see.

It is your truck. Run what you want (in spec).

 

In conditions where the oil can shear (heavy towing, heavy heat, racing) having a 10w30 affords a small increase in protection.

This is because of how multi-viscosity oil works:
- Ex: 5w30 oil is a 5w base oil with polymers that thicken it to 30 as it heats up (VIIs "viscosity index improvers"). 10w30 is a 10w base oil until it warms up and then acts like a 30w, and so on.

So in an aggressive scenario where 5w30 oil is just getting absolutely sheared, the kinematic viscosity at 100C might not register as a 30w oil anymore. This is where having a thicker "winter" rating can save the day although this is a super edge case.

That being said, modern oils are just so good and the 1GRFE is so easy on oils that in this case 5w30 vs 10w30 makes no practical difference.

 

Ya I've always been aware of it, but like you said its for extreme cases, and typically at that point you'd jump up to 10W40.

On my older Toyotas from the 80s and 90s I'd run 10W40 in the summer and beat the piss out of them, especially my GTS corolla haha.

 

300k so far running on dino oil 5-30 changed at 5k miles

 

kirkland and done.