Adding oil, what the manual says

i can remember metal oil cans and a can opener

 

Again, read the footnotes.
EDIT: I can find no place in the documentation for my ‘22 that calls the transmission fluid that.

 

What motivate that? Head gasket specific: any coolant loss or shakes on cold starts? Your miles are REALLY high to be doing that for the first time. Any chance it'd been done before; are you first owner?

 

So what? It’s oil, and oil breaks down.

Example: I have a BMW with a ZF-8 transmission. BMW says it has lifetime oil. ZF says change every 50,000 miles. BMW, like other manufacturers, want to promote low maintenance costs, not long vehicle lifetime. Thus, we get 10,000 mile oil change intervals and “lifetime” transmission oil.

There have been lawsuits which settled a simple point: The vehicle manufacturer has no responsibility for the vehicle lasting longer than the warranty. Toyota warranty is only 36,000 miles.

Toyota also does not mention intake and EGR cleaning. But we do.

 

Obviously you are a prudent owner who knows something is not right and suspects the owner's manual might not be 100% appropriate for your high mile engine with excessive oil consumption.

Why would Toyota suggest not adding oil until its past the low mark?

1. The first reason is they expect a quart to last 5,000 to 10,000 miles. When these engines were new and their piston rings did not cause excessive oil consumption, that assumption of controlled oil use was a good one.

- However these engines with higher miles are known oil burners with flawed piston rings. Oil lubricates and cools critical parts of the engine. There is no low level alarm; only a low oil pressure light. Low oil pressure means there is not enough oil to be picked up by the oil pump. Which suggests more than three quarts of oil is gone. There are only four quarts of usable oil when its full. At that point you are running on a few ounces of oil and bearing and cylinder wall damage increases dramatically.

2. The second reason is Toyota did not want someone to overfill the oil, especially if it was less than a quart low and you added a full quart. Overfilling may reduce mpg, can increase oil contamination and often feeds too much oil through the pcv system.

- However almost all adults and even teenagers are smart enough to read the side of an oil container and use it and a funnel to dispense the correct amount. The knowledgeable driver knows the dipstick shows 1.5 quarts between low and full. Which means adding a half quart somewhere in the middle of the dots is easy and won't overfill.

Otherwise your engine will fail. It really needs a rebuild now if the head gasket is not yet causing occasional cold start rattles. Keeping oil in it is the best option to delay the junkyard or $8,000 of major maintenance.

By the way, Walmart, Sams or Costco often have five or six quarts of good synthetic oil for $30. About $5 or $6 a quart. Adding two or three quarts instead of paying for two or three oil changes could save you $200 or more and may allow your engine to make 300k.

 

I think majority assume one quart/liter. Idea for Toyota, since it is somewhat unorthodox: emboss the dipstick with that info. Something like this:

|<—-1.5 liter—->|

 

"lifetime" means the life of the warranty....

 

You're on the right path now.

 

Sounds like my 2006 Prius engine that burns oil mainly on the highway.
Reason: annual oil changes caused stuck rings which caused galling in the cyinders.

 

How long are your oil intervals? Are you using full synthetic or blend or regular? I find a lot of people who pay to get oil changes tend to always mistakenly get conventional because its cheaper.