How many miles can you actually go between oil changes? The Prius manual says 10k but I notice the mechanic who changed my oil last put a sticker on my car to change in 5k. it has been about a year since my last oil change and I’ve only driven the car 4k miles this year. I need to drive another 1000 miles at the beginning of January to get back home from where I am now and was thinking maybe I can just gett it changed after that. Thoughts?
a lot of people here recommend 5k because of the head gasket issue. idk if it's true or not. you can't go wrong changing it early except for the financial, time and environmental costs. if you drive less than 5k/year, change it every spring. you'll be fine driving home 1,000 miles and changing it when you have time. how many miles on her?
In general with cheap crappy motor oil you can go 5K miles and with high quality full synthetic you can go 10K but I prefer 8K or once a year, whichever comes first.
5k miles is a good number. FWIW, for gen 3's (per yours), that what Toyota Canada recommended. We're doing about 3k kms per year now (~2k miles), I change ours yearly. When mechanics put a next-oil-change sticker on your windshield, it's both advice and a calling card. Seems like sound advice in this case, but take it with a grain of salt.
The old dino oil recommendations for old cars was 7500 miles. With good quality full synthetic oil, they say you should be able to go 10K miles between changes. People pick 5K mile changes because it's easy to reminder - just look at your odometer in the thousandth position; if it's a 0 or 5; it's due for another oil change. Technically speaking, oil manufactures say follow OEM recommendations or one year, whichever comes first. I really don't think oil goes bad in a year - but there you have it. Now that you got the information; you can now make an informed choice. Good Luck....
Every previous car we've had I recall 5k miles (aka 8k kms), the official manufacturer's recommendation. Our son's 2018 Mazda CX-5 is no exception (see attached). Lovely format btw, Toyota would do well to adopt it, the entire schedule in one table, second page has more explanation.
