Change Oil after Off Roading

T

toyfan23

New member
I went off roading on some dusty trails for the first time right after I did my first oil change at 10k miles. I thought I read somewhere that you should change your oil after driving on dusty roads or off roading, but I can't seem to find that again.

Doing a search I couldn't find anyone mentioning this... did I just remember wrong? Should you change your oil right after off roading on dusty trails or driving near the beach for a full day or extended time? I spent probably about 6-7 hrs out there and did about 50-60 miles in a lot of dirt and dust. I know some of you go through dirt trails every day though.
 
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toyfan23 said:
I went off roading on some dusty trails for the first time right after I did my first oil change at 10k miles. I thought I read somewhere that you should change your oil after driving on dusty roads or off roading, but I can't seem to find that again.

Doing a search I couldn't find anyone mentioning this... did I just remember wrong? Should you change your oil right after off roading on dusty trails or driving near the beach for a full day or extended time? I spent probably about 6-7 hrs out there and did about 50-60 miles in a lot of dirt and dust. I know some of you go through dirt trails every day though.
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Short answer is "No."
 
You also might want to at least gently dust off your air filter.

Like take it out and tap it on the ground to get a lot of the dust out. Using compressed air on it is probably not a good idea, but keeping the ton of fine dust sitting on top of it till the next filter change is not good either.

Would love to be able to buy the filters by the case and just change them after every outing myself. Dust inside the engine is not great :(
 
cool thanks guys for the tip and responses!!! Just wanted to make sure.

I did take out the air filter and tap it a little for the dust, but didn't see much... so I guess we're good.
 
toyfan23 said:
cool thanks guys for the tip and responses!!! Just wanted to make sure.

I did take out the air filter and tap it a little for the dust, but didn't see much... so I guess we're good.
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So ,when are you going to change your oil?

Kind of strange how Toyota doesn't give manuals with these things in it anymore and make you go ask on the internet when to change your oil.
 
What I do is I have an air cleaner for off road and on road. When going off road in the desert dust I put in the off road filter (stock oem) At the end of the trip I put in my newer clean air cleaner for normal use. Then I blow out the off road filter to be ready for the next trip. They are supper easy to change. This way I am not constantly ruining a new air filter.
 
If I changed my oil every time I went wheeling I'd be so broke...

On a more serious note, if you do wheel a lot then it's not a bad idea to move to a more aggressive maintenance cycle. For example, I change my diff oil every year in early summer regardless of mileage. During the spring we drive through tons of big puddles from melting snow and of course ice cold water + hot diff = bad.
 
philsey said:
Don't believe I've ever heard this statement before - why do you say this?
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A can of compressed air might be ok, but using a shop air system would probably damage the filter by opening up the fibers and making it porous to fine particles. Same as trying to use a brush on it or something :D. The filters are very fragile, in fact the last time I had my car in the dealer pulled out the cabin air filter (9 months old) and the corner of it caught the edge of the opening and it tore the center of it just from being pulled into a non square shape a bit.

I like the idea above about using two air filters though! Keep a nice clean one in for the 95% of the time your on the highway :)
 
If you try to clean the filter at 120 psi with the nozzle right on the filter I am sure you would damage it. If you use common sense and use around 60 psi at 12" distance it works just fine. Been doing it like this many years. On farm equipment in dusty fields this is done almost daily.
 
AirspeedX said:
Nope, but I definitely consider my diffs if I've spent substantial time in the water.
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Thanks for all the input guys. I just wasn't sure if what I thought I remembered was a crazy idea... and I didn't find anything to support that claim of changing oil after off roading so I thought i'd ask the pros here. Yea I am kind of a noobie regarding this. I'll be changing my oil at the normal 10k miles...

Thinking about it again I did go through a water crossing w/o the rear diff breather mod done yet (I plan on doing that soon). I don't know totally if it was deep enough to go under. How do you check if there's water in the diff?
 
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