Few months ago I went to the dealer and asked for price of synthetic oil, he told me $7.5 per quart. I need second oil change so went to the dealer today to buy filter and asked for the price of synthetic oil again. 0w20 full synthetic oil cost me at the dealer $4.59 a quart. Not sure if this was sale price, promotion or regular price, but I don't understand what the argument is all about, at this price there is not much difference between cost of synthetic and regular oil.

 

I just went for my 5k service, and I didn't fulfill my promise earlier in this thread to use synthetic. I have the 4y/55k prepaid maintenance plan, and I asked what the upcharge would be to use synthetic 0W20, and he said $25! So unlike the great price given by your dealer. my dealer is asking me to pay $5/qt on top of the cost for standard blended 0W20. No thanks, I'll stick with the blended.

 

Posted by flopshot
I totally agree with you. This is a forum for passing information, ideas, opinions, and likes and dislikes between fellow members. In my opinion skywagon should lose his/her membership in this forum.

 

I did my first oil change at the dealer at 2.5k, which I got for free and that's it, no more. I had so many bad experiences with car mechanics I avoid them and do everything myself especially oil. The last time I went to the mechanic, about 4 years ago I needed to change the shocks in my old car. First time around the mechanic forgot to tighten screw on the left rear shock, which knocked the screw out holding it, broke the thread and the whole shock felout from the mount while I was driving over some bumps. I took the car back, the guy replaced that shock for free, ok fine. Next time I'm trying to do my breaks on that wheel, one wheel nut was so tightly screwed, it wouldn't come off. After using pneumatic tool the thread broke and I had to drill the bolt just to take the tire off, lucky I was in my garage, not somewhere on the road with flat tire, but still took me half a day to fix that mess.
Anyhow I just did my second oil change myself today, of course the filter was so tight I had to use 2 feet extension just to get it loose. Now that I have proper filter wrench and everything is not too tight it should be 10 minuttes job in the future, less than it takes just to drive to the dealer. BTW my dealer only had 0w20 full synthetic oil for $4.59 and 5w20 blend. I was looking at oil prices in the store today and the least expensive oil was regular oil at $3.00 a quart and wasn't even proper weight for TCH, so I hope the dealer keeps that oil it stock and for the same price.

 

I was in to my dealership today to deal with the broken visor and I saw they had a sign at the parts counter for 5/30 oil so I asked about it. "Oh, you have an 07 car...no you will need the 0/20 oil. We just got it in."

I have another 2000 miles to go before my first oil change and I also bought the prepaid maintenance, so we will see if they charge me anything additional. Their regular charge on the wall was $32.

 

Good discussion, in my opinion. I appreciate plenty of facts, anecdotes and opinions. No personal snipes, please.

My experience over the last 40 (gasp!) years of car ownership has been much like that of WVGasGuy. Since I've been buying new cars (1978 Accord) I've never had an engine problem, and my oil changes have varied from conscientious to negligent, but always with standard oil. Does that prove anything? No more than my Uncle Charley smoking for 80 years proves that cigarettes don't cause lung cancer. I assume it's a pretty difficult task for anyone but a manufacturer to absolutely prove the effect that a specific oil has on an engine. Isn't that how and why the ratings system was developed?

Engine technology has changed quite a bit in recent years, and my average length of ownership has decreased, so I pay alot less attention than I used to. If I'm leasing a car for 3 years, I simply do whatever is mandated by the warranty, and at the lowest cost. However, if I plan to keep a car for over 100,000 miles (and this TCH may be one of those), then I'd do whatever I could to keep it healthy. The manufacturer's recommendation is a good starting point, as is the understanding of oil specs and ratings. Because of this discussion, I'll probably pay alot more attention to my first oil change - which is coming up before the cold NE winter sets in.

I certainly hope everyone (Skywagon and WVGasGuy included) continues to contribute whenever appropriate, and we can keep this forum as open and friendly as it is informative.

Cheers,

 

Well said, Dr_Drew!

Steve, in his original post, said he thought he saw a correlation between FE and switching to synthetic oil. I don't know as much about engine tech as some of you on this thread, but I know enough about statistics to conclude that Steve's data do not provide enough information (yet) to be "statistically significant". IOW, we can't draw a conclusion from it.

What's a good TCH owner to do? IMHO, take Dr_Drew's advice and take good care of your car. But how? Use an oil that Toyota recommends, and change your oil and filter at least as often as Toyota recommends. Doing that-at least-should provide protection that is more than adequate to assure your engine will last 100Kmi +. But if you have a technique that has worked for you over the years, it will probably work here too (unless it's REAL far from what the big T suggests...).

As to whether synthetic oil really improves mileage, we'll have to wait and see. If more of us keep good records like Steve's, in a few months we should have an answer that IS statistically significant. Any thoughts of asking Jason to help us with some tweaks to the Real Mileage Database?

And one more thing to agree with Dr_Drew about. If we keep the tone of our thoughts and remarks on the subject and not on the "personalities", all of us will get the highest level of benefit out of this forum. We don't have to be friends, but at very least, because we are all here sharing a common interest, we should give the benefit of the doubt to each other, and avoid "going personal" in public postings.

And if any of you want to insult me, get in line...it'll be a while before you work up to number one in the queue!