My engineer neighbor's approach to oil change breaking in his truck ?

Well, Honda says specifically NOT to change the factory loaded oil early, because they say they load it with something special for breakin purposes.

You might ask if Toyota does anything similar.

I would change the oil at 2500 miles with conventional oil (they don't use any special break-in oil anymore). Then at 5000 miles switch to full synthetic, and change it at 5000 mile intervals. The rings will seat faster and better if you use conventional oil up to 5000 miles.

I wonder if the oil is really special (different than conventional oil), or they just don't want people switching to synthetic too early. I suspect it is the later.

Always go with manufacture schedule. If there's anybody that don't have to screw up their car it's them. If they feel that making you change early would make their car lasts longer they would of say so. Since they didn't, you can bet that you really don't need to change it early.

It's hard to deal with paradigm shifts, but technology does improve. This country took 30 years to get people away from the 1,500 miles oil change interval to convince them that they really only needed to change oil every 3,000 miles. Now it seems like it will take equally long before people really believe that you can last 5,000 miles between intervals on regular conventional oil.

That is not entirely true. The marketing and sales people have a significant determination in what the maintenance intervals are (since warranty costs comes out of their budget). Marketing and sales looks very closely at what the competition says, because maintenance schedules can be a competitive advantage when trying to sell one brand over another. So it is not entirely an engineering decision as one might think.

Then it would be more pressure to add unnecessary intervals to scare the customers to change oils more often, not less.

The reason that Toyota does not specify the break-in sequence that your engineer neighbor described is because it is not necessary for Toyotas. Believe it or not, the folks at Toyota are pretty knowledgeable about the products they design and build. I spent 15 years working for the automaker and have broken in close to 100 new Toyotas. You will not go wrong following the advice in the owner's manual - that is what I do. ;-)

If you change the oil too soon, it takes longer for the rings to seat and the engine will get poorer performance and poorer fuel economy.

No, they have to balance the warranty cost with the competitors maintenance interval. Every Honda salesman knows the differences (if any) between the Honda and Toyota maintenance interval, and if it is to their advantage, the will mention it to every customer.

THat's what I did with my '78 Corolla 1200, 75,000 miles before being smashed, and with my 1980 Corolla SR-5, 245,000 miles when I traded it, and I saw it again about 4 years later.

I did mine at 1500 miles, and then again at 3,000 miles, and every 3-5,000 after that. And we're talking 20 years ago, when the 'State-of-the-Art' of Engine Oil isn't what it is today.

In the Corolla SR-5 and in my '85 Corolla GT-S, I replace the oil with 3.5 quarts of Castrol GTX, and one quart of Marvel Mystery Oil. Been doing this since 1981 and have gotten over 200,000 miles with those 2 cars, and

188,000 miles on a Honda Accord that was traded in 1998.

I agree with standard engines, follow the Mr T advice. Though with rebuilt motors most of the race-engine builders i know change every 2K miles until 4 then switch to fully synth at 5K and go as normal from then on. Thats said my engine has a recommend oil change rate of every

2750 miles :-O according to Mr T lol.

So what if you only have about 2500 miles at six months (and not the

5000) - give up one for the other? M

If it takes six months to put the first 2,500 miles on the odometer, the best thing to do would be to take a 2,500 mile road trip.

The worst thing you can do for a vehicle is take short trips without ever getting the engine, transmission, and exhaust good and hot. Nasty stuff accumulates in the oil, the exhaust doesn't dry out so it corrodes more quickly, the tires get cracked, etc.

Otherwise, change the oil based on time, not mileage.

Is it that critical to make longer trips? Are cars not made for normal go to the store only stuff? 2500 mi = $300 for gas Is it worth that much? M

You are not making any sense. Let me spell it out for you.

1) Automakers want to make sure their cars are taken care of properly, especially early on so they don't have to pay costly warranty repairs due to bad "break-in"

2) You claimed that vehicle maintenance interval are more influential by bean counters than engineers. Unless you work in upper-management in Toyota I think this premise is bogus if not laughable. Toyota didn't become the #1 reliable car in the industry by listening to bean counters instead of their engineers.

3) Assuming Toyota engineers do know what they are talking about (sacrasm), there's no reason to be suspicious of their lack of break-in requirement like so many other cars have.

No, it is not critical, but since you mentioned that you were willing to pay for extra oil changes to do what is best for the vehicle, I suggested something that actually is better for the vehicle. It is not really necessary to put 2,500 more miles on the vehicle. At least once a month, drive the vehicle for at least an hour at speeds above 50 MPH. You will do the vehicle a much better service than performing unnecessary oil changes.

Bud, you have no friggin idea what you are talking about. Warranty expense is sales and marketing expense according to the FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board). I can absolutely guarantee you that the sales and marketing divisions of Toyota have final say on maintenance intervals and warranty periods. I don't know why you call them bean counters, they are sales and marketing.

In fact, the warranty and maintenance interval may be different depending on which country the cars are sold in. So the exact same cars made in a Japanese factory can have a different warranties and maintenance intervals because they are sold by different Toyota marketing divisions in response to local competition and local laws regarding warranties.

The "engineers" may have input in the decision, but the factory gets the same amount of money allocated to their internal accounting books (cost of goods sold to the marketing divisions) regardless of which marketing division sells the car, and regardless of the warranty and maintenance interval, and regardless of selling price. As has been noted in the past, cars sold in Europe (including Toyotas) have much longer maintenance intervals than in the US.

Hyundai does not offer a 10 year warranty because their cars are much more reliable than Honda or Toyota. They offer the warranty to mitigate for the fact that they are LESS reliable than Honda and Toyota. It is a sales and marketing technique based on a calculated equation of how much extra they will have to pay for warranty expense versus how many more cars they will end up selling because of the better warranty.

You ought to get a real job in a major manufacturing corporation before you start talking about things you know nothing about.

Well, you don't want to break-in an engine with freeway droning, either. It's best to vary the load and the RPM's.

I would SWEAR that 30 years ago, the recommended interval was 5000 or even 7000 for "normal" service, and 3000 was the "severe" schedule.

But then, I swear a lot these days :/

...

diz, you have finally posted some truth.