oil change interval for 2018 taco

Everyone has their own ways. This is no different than how some people choose to use 91/93 octane in their trucks. Fuel door says 87 octane, but it's perfectly acceptable to use 85 octane in some environments. Or how there are some that believe taking it easy on the engine the first 1000 miles isn't actually good for it. To each their own!

 

I’m at 8500 miles on my Tacoma that I purchased in May. Yet to have an oil change. I just check the oil every so often and make sure it’s not starting to look like sh*t

 

This helps make my point about how each owner must make up their own mind on their maintenance . It would take me 58 years to get 350,000 miles on my truck . Polar opposites .

 

If you can afford it, do it earlier for "peace of mind", if not, do it at 10k as per manual. Depending on how much you "trust" Toyota, it's your choice to do it earlier, but knowing Toyota that puts priority on reliability it's a safe bet to follow the manual.

I'm old fashioned, I change every 3k with full synthetic (usually best castrol/mobil 1). I get the OEM oil filter for $5, stock up on oil for $30 when it's 50% off. $35 oil change is cheap insurance in my books.

food for thought: I used to work for Ford, their purpose for extending oil changes is to have less impact on the environment, not to save the planet, but to have a better score on their waste rating as a manufacturer. It was too early to tell if it affected the engine life or not when I worked there.

I now work for Jag Land Rover, their oil change interval WAS 16k miles, we're doing chain jobs consistently to the point we stock 5 sets at all times. A lot of times the oil comes out sludgy before 16k, now it's extended to 30k, because that makes sense.

 

There's no oil that will go 30k miles without a remote filter down to a few microns.

Almost all good synthetics these days (especially Group V ester based) will go 30k miles and do not break down (with remote filtration). But regular filtered oil does get contaminated with water, gas, exhaust, etc which lowers it's TBN and once it goes below a certain number it's not lubricating anymore. This can happen well before 10k miles if you do a lot of short cold trips and definitely well before 30k. There's plenty other oils (mostly cheap synthetics and dinos) that will shear down to lower grades well before 10k mile OCI, as well.

The discussion should move away from the quality of the oil to the actual use and application.