So, it's been one year since my car was manufactured in August 2019, and I took it to a local Toyota dealer today for the yearly oil change with the odometer at 5,851 miles, wearing my mask of course. This would be the first oil change since the factory fill, and it's a courtesy maintenance service during the first two years.
I chose this particular dealer because it was highly rated after I had bad experiences the last couple of times I took my car to another dealer. The other dealer put a P-metric tire instead of an ISO-metric tire, forgot to put on the valve caps, and forgot to put on the coolant reservoir cap.
I looked at the service request the service advisor printed out, and it showed SAE 0W-20 instead of the officially recommended SAE 0W-16. I showed it to him, and he showed me that on his computer it's showing the correct SAE 0W-16 viscosity and the technician would go with the latter. He convinced me that what was on the paper was perhaps some generic viscosity grade.
He said it would take about two hours; so, I decided to have a three-mile walk to do some shopping at Target and Smart & Final in 90-degree humid weather, carrying a heavy bag on the way back, which wasn't actually that bad, as I badly needed some exercise and sun with our coronavirus-restricted situation here. The car was ready about 20 minutes after I returned. They also gave it a courtesy wash in their very basic car wash even though I had later declined it when I saw and rethought it. I examined the valve caps and under the hood to make sure no caps were missing this time. Then I sat in the car and looked at the sticker on the window: "0W-20."
Should anyone care about this? Of course, everyone should. It has nothing to with whether 0W-20 is OK in this car or not. It has to do with principle. When you take your car to the dealer, you expect them to follow the official recommendations, whatever they are. If they don't, then you have little reason to trust what they are doing. What was the viscosity used by the technician? Did he bother to look at the oil-filler cap? I will never know. Sometimes you wonder if they have changed the oil at all.
I chose this particular dealer because it was highly rated after I had bad experiences the last couple of times I took my car to another dealer. The other dealer put a P-metric tire instead of an ISO-metric tire, forgot to put on the valve caps, and forgot to put on the coolant reservoir cap.
I looked at the service request the service advisor printed out, and it showed SAE 0W-20 instead of the officially recommended SAE 0W-16. I showed it to him, and he showed me that on his computer it's showing the correct SAE 0W-16 viscosity and the technician would go with the latter. He convinced me that what was on the paper was perhaps some generic viscosity grade.
He said it would take about two hours; so, I decided to have a three-mile walk to do some shopping at Target and Smart & Final in 90-degree humid weather, carrying a heavy bag on the way back, which wasn't actually that bad, as I badly needed some exercise and sun with our coronavirus-restricted situation here. The car was ready about 20 minutes after I returned. They also gave it a courtesy wash in their very basic car wash even though I had later declined it when I saw and rethought it. I examined the valve caps and under the hood to make sure no caps were missing this time. Then I sat in the car and looked at the sticker on the window: "0W-20."
Should anyone care about this? Of course, everyone should. It has nothing to with whether 0W-20 is OK in this car or not. It has to do with principle. When you take your car to the dealer, you expect them to follow the official recommendations, whatever they are. If they don't, then you have little reason to trust what they are doing. What was the viscosity used by the technician? Did he bother to look at the oil-filler cap? I will never know. Sometimes you wonder if they have changed the oil at all.
