OIL change intervals

[Joesson]

Not only our cars have oil control ring problems, why is that?
This has been discussed and generally agreed on here, this is a general look at other Toyota's and in reality all other ICE vehicles with extended mileage service intervals.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TJhFAwFv-O0

[Dev]

I have seen that video a few days ago when it was posted. The important thing to take away is not so much the extended change but the quality of oil from the dealership and then passing it off as extended change. Not all of the Toyota dealerships use Toyota oil and they almost always never use Toyota synthetic oil unless you ask for it. They buy cheap oil in bulk and hand out coupons to tempt owners to get their oil change for a very low cost while they look over the car and find things to repair or try to upsell additional treatment services and premature fluid replacements that are not required. It is the owners fault for not following the service interval based on the oil used that is specified in the manual for the conditions.
 Toyota/Lexus say that you can extend the milage if you use their synthetic oil otherwise its limited to 5k.

[mr2garageswindon]

The service intervals Toyota used to use was a 6000 mile interval, you would have an A service followed by a B service then another A service then a C service.
The C service was the big one, Oil air, plugs, fuel filter Check valve clearances (Never gets done)..
Later they moved to a 9000 interval A and B service.
When the MK3 MR2 came out they were at 10000 intervals.
Throughout all of these changes they still used the same bulk oil tank of Castrol Magnatec 10/40.
The amount of engine rebuilds we were getting in went from maybe 2 or so a year to at least 2 a week when they moved from cast blocks to the aluminium.
Almost always oil starvation to no4 big end bearing.
Pre 2000 Toyota's were incredibly reliable, after that... well you know what happens..

[Joesson]

The service intervals Toyota used to use was a 6000 mile interval, you would have an A service followed by a B service then another A service then a C service.
The C service was the big one, Oil air, plugs, fuel filter Check valve clearances (Never gets done)..
Later they moved to a 9000 interval A and B service.
When the MK3 MR2 came out they were at 10000 intervals.
Throughout all of these changes they still used the same bulk oil tank of Castrol Magnatec 10/40.
The amount of engine rebuilds we were getting in went from maybe 2 or so a year to at least 2 a week when they moved from cast blocks to the aluminium.
Almost always oil starvation to no4 big end bearing.
Pre 2000 Toyota's were incredibly reliable, after that... well you know what happens..

Such is progress!

[McMr2]

Not only our cars have oil control ring problems, why is that?
This has been discussed and generally agreed on here, this is a general look at other Toyota's and in reality all other ICE vehicles with extended mileage service intervals.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TJhFAwFv-O0

I've equated these extended intervals with the changes in ownership of modern cars. Many will take on a lease, hire purchase or PCP deal so minimising service costs in the first 3 years or X miles is a selling point, longevity be damned. Chances are any damage will be long term and not seen by the first 'owner'.

If one is able and willing, regular oil changes are a cheap and easy means of preventative maintenance. I do it on the mr2 every 3k (about every 2 years!) and every 6k on the daily which has a VW TSI engine. 

[mr2garageswindon]

I've equated these extended intervals with the changes in ownership of modern cars. Many will take on a lease, hire purchase or PCP deal so minimising service costs in the first 3 years or X miles is a selling point, longevity be damned. Chances are any damage will be long term and not seen by the first 'owner'.

If one is able and willing, regular oil changes are a cheap and easy means of preventative maintenance. I do it on the mr2 every 3k (about every 2 years!) and every 6k on the daily which has a VW TSI engine. 

That was the point in extending it, the 1st 3 years servicing is cheaper and more attractive to the lease market.. 10k a year.
By year 4 or 40000 miles then on the service is spark plugs, gear oil change, coolant change which pumps the price up.
Bloody ridiculous if you see the state of the spark plugs after 40000 miles.

[tricky1138]

That was the point in extending it, the 1st 3 years servicing is cheaper and more attractive to the lease market.. 10k a year.
By year 4 or 40000 miles then on the service is spark plugs, gear oil change, coolant change which pumps the price up.
Bloody ridiculous if you see the state of the spark plugs after 40000 miles.

I remember once having a V8 Discovery, and it went to Land Rover for a 50k service (before I knew better) and driving it home it developed a misfire, so I drove it back to the garage to investigate. They told me it needed new spark plugs and I asked why they we're done on the service (as I presumed they would be changed at each one) only to be told they we're due till 80k!

I went home and changed them myself for a lot less than what they were going to charge!

[Ardent]

What do we say on here.

Oil is cheap. Engines are not.

[MikeBoo]

I wasn't aware that Toyota/Lexus engines were so susceptible to engine failure over other makes, that guy in the video appears to know a decent amount on Lexus/Toyota engines so I've no reason to doubt him.
When I looked into getting an MR2 Mk3 I don't recall engines problems being something specific to look at as a potential issue over any other make.

Some years ago I noticed that America appeared to be awash with 'oil change' centres and it seemed there was a mentality to change their oil every 6000 miles which seemed very odd to me especially when the country is so huge and therefore generally did a lot of miles and would be changing it every few months, because at the time I had regularly run used VW diesels at 2yr/20k service intervals up to well over 200k with no engine issues. I mentioned this to someone IRL and they understood that the reason being was that Americans still used mineral oil for cars whereas in the UK all modern cars used semi or fully synthetic oil. As we know mineral oil breaks down a lot quicker than semi & fully synthetic oils so this sounded a plausible answer to me for our extended oil changes over the US.

What drove (sorry for the pun) me to cars with a long service interval was that I'd previously bought a Vauxhall diesel that required 5k oil changes and a change in circumstances soon afterwards meant I had a 30k/year commute and ended up having to service it every couple of months 

[JB21]

MR2 2ZZ track car every 500 miles or 2 track days using decent 5w 40 synthetic
2013 BMW 330D every 10k miles using OE spec C3 5w 30 synthetic

[Dev]

I wasn't aware that Toyota/Lexus engines were so susceptible to engine failure over other makes, that guy in the video appears to know a decent amount on Lexus/Toyota engines so I've no reason to doubt him.
When I looked into getting an MR2 Mk3 I don't recall engines problems being something specific to look at as a potential issue over any other make.

Some years ago I noticed that America appeared to be awash with 'oil change' centres and it seemed there was a mentality to change their oil every 6000 miles which seemed very odd to me especially when the country is so huge and therefore generally did a lot of miles and would be changing it every few months, because at the time I had regularly run used VW diesels at 2yr/20k service intervals up to well over 200k with no engine issues. I mentioned this to someone IRL and they understood that the reason being was that Americans still used mineral oil for cars whereas in the UK all modern cars used semi or fully synthetic oil. As we know mineral oil breaks down a lot quicker than semi & fully synthetic oils so this sounded a plausible answer to me for our extended oil changes over the US.

What drove (sorry for the pun) me to cars with a long service interval was that I'd previously bought a Vauxhall diesel that required 5k oil changes and a change in circumstances soon afterwards meant I had a 30k/year commute and ended up having to service it every couple of months 

Toyota and Lexus are excellent vehicles with the best track record in North America including their trucks that are made in Texas. Used Toyotas also have a very high resale value even with high miles.
 We did have 5k dealer oil changes which can be extended to 10k if you use Toyota Synthetic oil which is specially formulated for Toyota engines. The vehicle makes with the most problems tend to be European and domestic small cars which also has the worst depreciation.

 This guy knows this but it appears that he is full of hyperbole. It is true that many cars use regular oil but there is also close to half that use synthetic oil as it is an option at quick lube places and many are following scheduled oil changes since even the ignorant do not know how to turn of the oil change reminder light.

 On the whole however there are some problematic engines when it comes to oil consumption one of them being the 1ZZ but as long as its topped off it generally keeps going. The 2ZZ on the other hand has a better track record and in my opinion if you are not beating the death out of it I strongly believe it is an upgrade over the 1ZZ in terms of reliability as I found several examples that have very high miles with very little oil consumption.