Toyotas maintenance and warranty guide lays out the following:

Every 5k or 6 mos if:
Driving on dirt roads or dusty roads

Driving while towing, using a car-top
carrier, or heavy vehicle loading

Repeated trips of less than five miles in
temperatures below 32°F / 0°C:

Extensive idling and/or low speed driving
for a long distance such as police, taxi or
door-to-door delivery use.

Every 10K or 12 mos otherwise. I play it safe and change every 5k/6 months. You do you. **edit** if a rooftop cargo carrier adds enough load to require a different oil change interval, let’s just assume that a lift, bigger wheels and tires might as well. Again, your party, your rules, but this is what’s laid out in the manual. Also, for any of you that watch Car Care Nut, he’s pretty adamant about the 10K being the bare min, and really do it every 5k as well. He claims to be a Toyota master mechanic, and i believe him.

You’re literally wrong, but okay.


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It's suggested for long idle situations but I'll stick with 5K. The engine isn't much different from the single VVT-i engine that required changes every 5K miles. What literally changed to make 10K ok for the dual VVT-i engine?

Looks like it's driven by the requirement of 0W-20, which is synthetic only.

"Only Toyota vehicles in which 0w-20 synthetic oil is required (except 3UR-FBE Engines*) have been approved for extended oil change intervals of 10,000-miles/12-months. (However, you should continue to check the oil level regularly and top off if needed. That will help your engine get the full benefit of synthetic oil.)
Vehicles in which 0w-20 is an option to 5w-20 mineral oil, (or 5w-30), will continue to require 5,000-mile/6-month oil change intervals, even if 0w-20 oil is used.
" - Source: Toyota Customer Service

But I wonder what changed internally. Some people run 5/30 without issues but that's also something I wouldn't do.

I am saying Toyota is hedging their bet and the recommend OCI is purely based on synthetic vs conventional and nothing to do with the engine internally.

If 5W-30 was only available in synthetic, they would recommend 10k change. However, since 5W-30 is also available in conventional (0W-20 isn't), Toyota is playing it safe and avoiding any potential litigation loop hole.

That's how Toyota's statement reads to me.

Gotcha. Oils and engines are definitely better than the 70s 3K changes but still 10K seems a bit much for me.

Change the oil whenever you want but this is one of the many videos the Car Care Nut says about oil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdNC...=TheCarCareNut

Car Care Nut gives vague recommendations that won’t hurt your vehicle, but they keep his service bay full and people sharing his monetized YouTube videos. He’s preying on fear. We buy Toyota because we want reliable. He preys on that instinct by sowing doubt that just to happens to financially benefit him in two ways. He doesn’t do root cause analysis. He doesn’t have access to data. He doesn’t do controlled experiments to understand the actual wear to the oil. He sees failed engines but he honestly doesn’t even know how they are driven.

I’m a manufacturing quality engineer that actually durability tests engines for a living. I know enough to know that I don’t know enough to make a recommendation on oil change intervals other than listen to what the manufacturer recommends. I’ve seen the abuse that engines can take but even what I’ve done isn’t near what testing the actual design and spec engineers do. My expertise is narrow and I’m cognizant of that.

From a purely pragmatic perspective, this is a 14 year old engine. If it were sensitive to oil changes, we would know by now.

just my 2 cents on this, not that it matters.

Oil is cheap, engines are not, 90% of the day to day use of my 4Runner would fall under the "severe service" guidelines based on Toyotas own manual.

In summary, I change my oil every 6-7 thousand kilometers (less than 5k miles), or 6 months. I time it as best I can to get it done just before winter, so i'm not stuck changing oil in -35 C in my unheated garage.

I personally don't understand why people push their oil to it's absolute limit. I guess if you're paying someone $100 to do it for you, I can maybe see why you'd avoid doing it more often. In reality, $200-$300/year for oil changes is a drop in the bucket when it comes to the health of your engine. I personally spend roughly $55 on Mobil 1 and a Toyota filter for a full synthetic oil change every 6 months, but I guess we all have our own priorities.

I use to change it every gas fill up but now its every other.....


6-7500 range on both 4runner and audi

Thank you for this post. With 323K on a 2014 SR5, OCI at 10K with 0w20 synthetic, I am the anecdotal data point that we’d know by now.

You can get your 6.5 quarts of Mobil 1 at Walmart for $35 or less. Quaker State is even cheaper and just as good, some studies say even better in some aspects. Toyota OEM filters off Amazon for $42 for 10 or $4.20 apiece, delivered. So really we’re talking an oil change for less than $39 and 20 minutes of my time. I’d spend more time just getting it to a dealer, let alone the wait and getting it back home. Then there is the issue of minimum wage lube techs stripping the bolts out on your skid plate by zipping them back in with a cordless impact. All that said, I still change at 10K intervals because the synthetic holds up and 95% of our miles are interstate highways.

Oil change threads are always the same. Just change your oil when Toyota says to or change it early. It's up to you if you want that "peace of mind." These engines aren't blowing up or getting a shorter life because you did a 10k interval. I'd imagine the 99.99% of other 4Runner drivers that aren't on an enthusiast forum are changing it closer to 10k without issue because it's what the dealer and Toyota says. Keep in mind...most car owners aren't car people. It's probably safer to believe a lot of these go over 10k intervals because Karen forgot or doesn't care. I personally run 7500 miles or so because that's a years worth of driving for me. I don't see the reason to do it earlier than that mileage wise, but I won't go over a year.

Now, if this were a KIA forum it may be a different story. Those suckers burn through motors like nobodies business. But, it's not.

I'm sure his stated prices are in Canada.