The Corolla is the #1 highest produced car in the world and I am sure it will not matter if you use a 20 or 30 wt oil at the end of 200,000 miles. Maybe use what the factory recommends to make it past 300,000. Most people won't keep a car that long.
Late Model Corolla 1.8L 0W20 Or Thicker OK ?
- Thread starter ChrisD46
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Toyota engines from 2007 to about 2020 seem to have oil consumption issues across all models.
Many people attribute this to the 10k recommended oil change interval, but personally I think it may also have to do
with Toyota switching to 20 weight oils. During that oil change interval, the 0W-20 sheers down to 0W-16 (HTHS 2.6 shears down to 2.3).
This thinning of the 20 weight oil to 16 weight oil over the long oil change interval may accelerate wear due to the sheared down HTHS of 2.3.
If I owned a Toyota, I would use 5w30 with shorter oil change intervals (perhaps every 4k).
Is this overkill, perhaps yes. It's really up to the individual car owner to make their own decision.
So there is a difference between an engine making it to 300k miles, and an engine making it to 300k miles with no oil consumption/engine wear.
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Seen it, Felt it. Many times in many vehicles. It appears that in VVTi adapted F.E. engines with light slipper skirt pistons and undersquare long stroke are op temp HTHS sensitive. They seem to like a certain viscosity. The Goldilocks viscosity.
Somewhat bizarre, but I have experienced it to many times to refute these specific claims.
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That's why my VW Jetta clattered like nuts and had poor upper RPM torque, when warm but it would go away when 1 lite of 0W40 FS was substituted. Maybe my crank throws were ground on the low side of the tolerance? Seems unlikely with today processes.
You guys (not you specifically gregk24) "piling on" but just just 'bench racing' from behind your desk without seeing issues and resolving them - however ridiculous they may seem - is greatly unappreciated and shows lack of experience.
Wow, I see in your signature you have a 1999 Toyota Sienna with 460k miles.
Would you mind sharing with us the engine oil viscosity and oil change interval you used, and also the brand/type of oil used.
Did you ever run into the sludge issues that others with 1999 Toyota Sienna's experienced?
Also, please share how frequently you did drain/fills of the transmission fluid.
Has the automatic transmission ever been rebuild during your 460k miles?
It would be helpful for others to learn about your successful maintenance strategies which allowed 460k miles.
Perhaps we could all learn and do whatever you did.
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This is just a guess, but I think it's because they assume 5W-20 might not be "full synthetic," or rather that 0W-20 IS, and the change intervals are based on synthetic oil.
The first scheduled oil change is at 10,000, and the note above comes at 15,000 and then repeats at 25, 35, and so on. So basically, they would have you change 5W-20 every 5000 miles and 0W-20 every 10,000 (or 5,000 under severe service).
With either choice (0W-20 or 5W-20), you're stuck with a HTHS=2.6 when oil is new, and possible oil shearing down to HTHS=2.3 during the oil change interval. So probably little difference in wear between them. Switching to a 0w30 or 5w30 with HTHS in the range of 3.0 to 3.2 would be my choice, so at the end of your oil change interval, the worst that would have happened is a 30 weight oil shearing down to a 20 weight oil (and not a 20 weight oil shearing down to a 16 weight oil).
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You are leaning pretty hard on the use of the word shear in your posts. In many instances the biggest source of viscosity loss is fuel dilution. Since basically every UOA we see posted here doesn't include HTHS, we really don't know how much it gets impacted on average.
So, what would you say to a 20 weight that had an HTHS of a 30 weight? I know of a couple of such oils. What about a thick 20 weight compared to a thin 30 weight? You do recognize that any grade is a range, and the actual "thickness" of the oil could vary quite a bit.
Hint: learn the difference between tolerance and clearance and use them appropriately.
True. I was mainly thinking about shearing in older engines, but yes newer engines have the fuel dilution issue caused by direct injection engines.
The UOA do show sheared viscosity at 100C, which is not HTHS at 150C, but can give some indication on what viscosity the oil has sheared to.
I need 4 minivans for myself, my wife and 2 college aged children to commute to work/college, and can't afford $50,000 * 4 = $200,000 for 4 new minivans, so I typically buy earlier model minivans and take them to high mileage, so engine wear and reducing oil consumption over the long term are bigger priorities for me than the regular person. Fuel dilution usually doesn't occur with non direct injection earlier engines.
I choose Honda Odyssey mini-vans since on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) website, they are one of the safest vehicles on the road with the least # of deaths per million vehicle years in real world accidents. To put that into perspective, Chrysler minivans have 4 times as many deaths as Honda Odyssey minivans in real world accidents. If only all those people involved in serious crashes in Chrysler minivans had bought Honda Odyssey mini-vans instead, a lot more of those people might still be alive.
You can check the safety of any year, make, and model here:
https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model
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There is no such thing, as exact same engine in the US speced for 0W-20, 0W-16, and 0W-8 are speced in Europe and Australia for 5w30 and 5W-40. Download the European or Australia owner's manual for your vehicle to confirm. There are many BITOG threads on this topic.But what about those thin oil channels that can get clogged up by 5w30
Yeah, I know, just making fun. Those people will tell you that while engine is the same they use different programming for oil pump in europe. They always find something to justify owner manual for US.
True, or they say most engine wear occurs at engine startup, but 0W-20 and 0W-16 and 0W-8 have same viscosity as 0w30 at engine startup.
0W-30 might be the perfect viscosity for all vehicles.
Maybe, maybe not. It would completely depend on the temperature. More misunderstanding about what the winter rating means and does not mean. Only at very cold temperatures could that possibly happen and maybe not even then.
Most used oil analysis (including Blackstone labs) show viscosity @100C and sheering down a grade is deemed normal and common on the used oil analysis results.
Just check used oil analysis in the used oil analysis section on BITOG.