Yes it sure is crazy, go to the amsoil site even they spec 5w20 for my 1994 Ford E150. I have always stuck with the mobile 1 0w40 for the van year around. I don’t drive it during winter due to the salt that gets thrown down everytime we get a flurry.
2015 Toyota Yaris 5w30 recommended
- Thread starter R1jake
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AutoMechanic
Site Donor 2024
Yeah we don’t run synthetic in our van and unfortunately it’s hard to find any non synthetic stuff anymore.
There's a way to reduce RPM by going with greater circumference tires where you cover certain distance with fewer revolutions.
I did experiment with it on my Toyota Tercel long time ago.
But this also came with some negatives.
Tires have more rolling mass due to being heavier.
As long as you went straight all was good. In turns car became wobbly due to taller sidewall and it was very uncomfortable and disconcerting.
Odometer had to be also recalibrated otherwise your actual speed would be higher than what was shown.
After two seasons I went back to OE tires and car handled much better.
What are you reasons behind running 0w40 in a pretty small 1.5l engine? What kind of problems are you solving with it? I’m not buying the idea of just using the same grade for “simplicity”, m1 0w40 is on the shelves right next to 5w30. And your few cars don’t really qualify for a fleet, so why fixing something that’s not broken?
I used Mobil 0w-40 in my 2006 Scion Xa (1nz-fe engine) last Summer. It was definitely too thick for the engine. While towing the 14' boat or quad in 85 degree weather up steep hills at high rpms it did fine however while not towing and just driving hard, the thicker oil made the engine too sluggish for my liking. I switched it out early last October for 5w-30. That little engine doesn't like thinner 5w-30 like Pennzoil Platinum during warmer months either. It lost a large amount of power after extended hard driving and ran rough until it cooled down some. It did best with high HTHS 5/10-30 (diesel/Euro) during the warmer months and the thinner 5w-30 worked well during the winter months. Its an insanely durable engine that never burned any measurable amount of oil.
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Has there ever been a documented case of a thicker grade oil not playing well with VVT in any vehicle ever?
I guess there’s no documented evidence that 0w16 or 5w50 or 10w60 would cause any problems, but I hope the common sense wins
Hmm...so no evidence provided that oil grade affects VVT performance but you're still doubling down that it is "common sense" that it does? Sure, with all the yahoos in this world not paying attention to manufacturer recommendations, or even worse, second-guessing manufacturer recommendations and pretending they know better and using an incorrect oil grade, wouldn't we have heard something about this "common sense" problem somewhere? Seems this common-sense doesn't seem to make sense.
Do you have any proof that 10w60 would not work fine in this engine or not? How is this question different from yours except for “0w40” part which from the factual point of view makes no difference- neither 0w40 nor 10w60 are specified for the engine. And if you don’t care about the specs, would you run a straight 30 or jet oil in this engine? I can go on forever
My apologies...the, "but" in your response, "I guess there’s no documented evidence that 0w16 or 5w50 or 10w60 would cause any problems, but I hope common sense wins" was a little ambiguous and I read that as you were saying while there is no documented evidence for any problems but common sense dictates that thicker or thinner oil could still affect VVT performance. My mistake...
Might have worded it not very clearly, sorry bout that
Oddly my echo with a 5sp ran about 400RPM / 10mph; that is about 2400RPM @ 60 or 3200 @ 80; I used to get mid to high 40s on the highway
I assumed my 07 would be similarly geared; it is not; it is more high strung and i pull in low 40s. Not sure why that was done; it was a bit disappointing to me.
I mention this only to assert that the assumption very small engines run super fast isn't necessarily correct; my echo was a 2100lb car.
I commuted to school in a 2000-ish baby blue Echo with a 4-speed auto 150miles per day 6-7 days per week for 5 years. I beat the piss out of that car, I don't remember changing the oil all that often (probably ever 15-20k miles?) and I don't remember caring all that much what I put into it. I averaged 75-80mph during my commute but unfortunately, it didn't have a tach. At 80mph it sounded like it was screaming at at least 4000rpm. Around 200,000 miles it needed an ignition coil replaced and it ran beautifully for another 25K miles before I sold it. Tires, brakes and windshield wipers and the occasional oil/filter change.
Older me would never do what I did to that car but it's hard to argue the car didn't do its job - 4 years of school plus my first year of residency.
i love my ex hertz, 2014, toyota yaris base l model, crank windows and all. i absolutely had to get a yaris after working in southeast asia, where the yaris is the universal taxi. i cannot recall seeing -w20 oil in all my years there, -w40 is what you find in big box retailers. that said, i wouldn’t run -w20 in any motor vehicle, especially my sw desert, snowbird yaris. it gets $20 kendall or valvoline 5w30 semisynthetic oil changes at a decently run, superior tire and repair franchise every 18mo or 3-4k miles.
I don't think that engine is good at shearing oil. I think that 0w30 AFE is good at getting sheared.
Wonder how it would like a 5w30 diesel oil like Motorcraft oil? Might be best of both.
When I worked at the Toyota dealer, we only had three oils in stock to use: 0w16, 0w20 (TGMO synthetic), and 5w20 (bulk conventional). If a car came in that took 5w30, we looked at the work order if the customer wanted synthetic or conventional.
Great suggestion... I used a diesel rated 10w-30 delo in it a couple of years ago from mid-Spring until early Fall. It worked MUCH better than the ilsac oils. One July afternoon, it was 92F. I was towing home a used/ just purchased motorcycle. I had a strong urge to flog the car. For about an hour that little 1nz-fe engine was worked hard. Even while accelerating up hills with ~800 lbs. behind it and the a/c blasting it never ran out of breath. With the ilsac oils, it would have felt worn out and sluggish within the first ten minutes of flogging.
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