Changing Factory fill fluids early - a report (Long) with analysis results

In March, I purchased a 2015 Tacoma Double Cab V6 4WD Off-Road. The manufacture date on this Tacoma was in February 2015, so it was brand-spanking new.

With all my new vehicles, I've made it a habit to change out all my factory fill lubricants (Engine Oil, Front Differential, Transfer Case, and Rear Differential) really early, around 1,000 miles.

In recent years, I've wondered whether this practice is a waste of time and money since manufacturing processes have gotten so much better, and break-in is not such a big deal anymore.

I've always been a big advocate of analyzing my used oil as it can provide useful information on how well the oil is performing, and can provide early insight into potential problems. I decided to take a sample of all the factory fill fluids immediately prior to changing them, so I could see whether it was really worth it to change them out early.

The links to all the analysis reports are below. My conclusions and findings:

1) On all four samples, analysis indicated significantly elevated wear metals, contaminants, and total solids.

2) The rear differential had an amazingly large amount of metalic "sludge" on the drain plug magnet. There was also a large, about 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch long metalic shaving of some kind attached to the magnet, within the "glop" of sludge.

3) The Front differential did not have much on the magnetic drain plug.

4) The Front differential, Transfer case, and rear differential were all filled with 85 weight oil at the factory. This is what the Toyota manual calls for in the Front and Rear differentials, but it calls for 90 Weight (Actually, 75W-90) in the transfer case. I guess they found it easier to use the same Gear Lube for all three compartments.

5) The engine was filled with 20 weight engine oil at the factory. This really surprised me. I'm pretty confident it was a 20 weight - it is definitely solidly in the 20 weight range, and I really doubt it sheared down to a 20 weight in only 1,000 miles.

My conclusion: It's really hard to say that changing out the factory fill fluids adds any life to the respective components. But I am glad I changed the fluids out, and will continue to do so in my vehicles.

Links to reports:

Front Differential:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd176/btanchors/TACO_Front_Diff1_zpsvydbunps.jpg


Transfer Case:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd176/btanchors/TACO_Xfer_1_zpsygj8r58b.jpg


Rear Differential:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd176/btanchors/TACO_Rear_Diff_1_zpsaj07gcoa.jpg


Engine:
http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/dd176/btanchors/TACO_Engine_1_zpse8ixteog.jpg

 

Thanks a bunch for sharing such great data an analysis! As a heads up to others, be sure to follow the image links as a few of the reports include notes from the testing agency on what they think is wearing and that most of it is what they expect from a new engine. Interesting reading.

I bought the exact same truck at the exact same time. Mine will also get the engine oil swapped at about 1000 miles simply because that will be the 6 month interval (truck not getting driven at the moment). Will switch to synthetic on that first change.

I'll also be converting the diffs and transfer to synthetics sometime in the first year. Based on your reports and the comments from the tester I'll probably wait on doing those swaps until the end of the first year of ownership or a bit later - will probably have about 5000 miles at that point. It seems like they still expect wear metals past 1000 miles so I'll let the factory oil suck that up before switching to synthetics for a longer change interval.

After the first 1.5 yrs of ownership my truck will be very low mileage (probably 1000 to 1500 a year at most) in storage a lot. So I'm going to be figuring out what time based change intervals to do with synthetics - probably with testing like you've done!

Again, thanks a whole bunch for sharing this.

 

Thanks for sharing.