Forrest Wrote:

An American built, supercharged screamer like that Lightning, I could
justify the extra cost/effort, just for piece of mind. The engine he
has is known for oil control problems with higher mileage in naturally
aspirated form, the supercharger's additional loading only exacerbates
the problem...so yeah, if it was me, no amount of caution would be too
much...with the standard Japanese worker bee engine, no need...just do
you oil changes when reccommended, and you'll be fine.

If you operate in normal conditions and do your service on time,
synthetic doesn't really have a lot of tangible benefits. it is nice,
however, to have some extra safety margin knowing that if you go over
interval for a service, it's ok, or if you overheat, the oil isn't
going to turn into plastic, etc...just depends on your comfort
level...I find semi-syn blends to be a great alternative. Flow nice in
the cold, comes out almost as clear as it went in, etc. Price is very
likeable...

A lot of yes/no regarding use of synthetic oil, so it a hard call.  But,
I would foolow your friend's thinking by changing oil and filter at 1K,
2.5K, and again at 5K.  It not expensive [meaning the oil changes], and
they get rid of any flotsam and jetsam created by a new engine break-in
period.

You wont get a consensus on this board when lubrication matters are the
topic.
We all have our habits and beliefs, and - no matter what anyone else says -
you
are pretty much on your own when it comes to oil change protocol.

I prefer to err on the side of over fastidiousness.

I think your friend did everything possible to insure that the engine
will have a long life.  5K increments for oil changes is reasonable.
Hopefully he is as punctual in flushing all the other fluids in the
vehicle.

The tolerances are probably tighter if anything...

Contamination from the manufacturing process hasn't disappeared.

, such as this, at this time,

It is probably worthwhile extra insurance that doesn't cost much over
the life of the car.

Toyota like all car companies tries to reach a balance between cost of
maintenance and cost of repairs.  The improved quality of lubricants
combined with notable improvements in engine technology have allowed
some car manufacturers to extend oil change schedules without having a
notable impact on engine wear.  It is non unusual to see cars run for
300,000 miules with no major repairs.  Thirty years ago 100,000 miles
was the benchmark.

The maintenance schedules are to some extent influenced by the widely
publicized cost-of-annual-maintenance data.  Some car companies carry
extended maintenance schedules to what I would call an extreme to keep
those numbers down.  

Good questions.

Actually, they're not. Most of the critical engine clearance
specifications (piston-to-wall, ring gap, bearing clearnace) for a 1966
engine are essentially identical to those of a 2006 engine. What has
changed is twofold:

1) quality of OIL is vastly improved and continually improving.
2) consistency of assembly- IOW, its easier for a manufacturer to hit
the specifications right on the mark on EVERY engine that rolls off the
line these days.

For what its worth, though, I break in all new engines (whether just
purchased or a freshly rebuilt 1966 engine) pretty much exactly the way
your neighbor did. If its a truly freshly-assembled engine that I've put
together and has never been run at all before, I do the first oil change
after one *hour* of break-in time, believe it or not, to get all the
assembly lubricant and initial wear products out. Then 500 miles, then
1000, then 2500-3000, then normal oil changes.  It may not be a
significant benefit, but it definitely cannot hurt. Given the amount of
visible metal in the oil that comes out of any freshly assembled engine
(including 2006 engines) I would AT LEAST change the filter after a few
hundred miles on any new car.

Won't hurt to follow the 'traditional' break in. 5000 miles between oil
changes is a bit too much for my liking, synthetic or not, but as has
been stated personal preference is just that . . . personal. That
being said, many 'aftermarket extended service warranties' will require
documentation of no more than 4000 mile oil change intervals. I like
the synthetic blends for price/performance value. I drive Fords so I
use Motorcraft oil and filters. The quality of the filter you use is
the most important variable you control. Factory filters are always a
good choice. For the most part avoid the 'Quickie Lube' brands of
filters along with Fram.  NAPA Gold filters are manufactured by WIX and
are also a good choice. When I was involved with building professional
racing engines the norm for start up was to use a series of aircraft
screen filters in the oil return lines in addition to the normal
filtering arrangement. These engines were assembled in a 'clean'
environment with great care. The amount of 'trash' generated on initial
run in is astounding. First one I saw I thought the engine had a
serious malfunction. Doesn't take long for the trash to be filtered out
and the oil stream clears up. When you buy a car from the dealer and
run it out to the 7500 mile oil change you're gambling your filter has
enough capacity to hold all the trash without bypassing and running the
crap through your engine.

Break in of a new vehicle should be done in accordance with the owner's
manual. The factory lubricant ought to be left in there for as long as
specified.

Sure! After all, who knows Toyotas better than your retired engineer
neighbor?

I can't imagine it would hurt.  Alas, I don't have to break in a new
engine just every day -- certainly not one of that caliber.

After break-in, during an engine's normal service lifetime, I change
oil per the fouling characteristics and duty cycle of each car, not
simply mileage.  But I play that fairly conservatively too.  My
cleaner-running cars might hit five thousand mostly-highway miles
between changes, but the ones that are harder on their oil, or rack up
mostly city miles, get a change every three thousand.  That often
coincides with the severe-service schedule in the owner's manual....
and the description of severe service, closely read, applies to what
most of us do...

If you really want to be scientific about these things, you can send
off an oil sample for analysis, but the cost will buy you, what, two or
three synthetic oil changes with quality filter?  One could also do a
magnifying-glass or microscope-aided augury of the oil filter, and look
carefully at the (often magnetized) drain plug.

Cheers,
--Joe

There is no need for a break in.  Our fleet has many hundreds of
vehicles and when new ones are sent out to replace old ones no one
"breaks them in", they just drive em.  There will always be a few that
eventually have problems but it's usually blown head gaskets or the
like, not problems that would be related to not being broken in.  And
a very large percentage of them run way past 100K on the original
engines and transmissions and many are still in the fleet at over 200K
on the original drive train.  On my personal cars I do a change at
1000 miles when new.  After that it's synthetic Mobil 1 and it's
changed at 12K or 12 months.  In our fleet it's regular dino changed
at 6K or 6 months.  On my last new car (99 Mustang GT) I pulled the
factory oil filter apart to look at what it caught and there was
nothing in it.  On my beater truck I pulled a fram filter apart at
160K on the truck and 5k on the filter and there was nothing in that
filter of note.  The main reason I took that one apart was because of
all the bad mouthing people do about fram filters and how they are
made of cardboard.  Guess what, the cardboard was just fine.  And I'm
sure it's not really cardboard, it's just not metal.

If anyone on here agrees with me I'll be so shocked I'll need
defibrillation.

jeffcoslacker Wrote:

You know, I was just thinking...it also shows that time more than
mileage is a bigger factor in how much trouble a vehicle will
give...while rolling up 80,000 miles a year, NOTHING ever went wrong
with these things...

And conversely, I've seen lots of customer cars that hardly saw any
mileage that things were always falling apart on...seen 8 year old cars
with 30,000 miles on them that had stretched timing belts and tensioner
assembly falling apart, stuck proportioning valves in the brakes,
steering rack leaking badly, etc...and even the ones that were in
relatively good shape would utterly disintegrate once in the hands of
someone who would actually drive them sometimes...loads of people
having problems one after another with low mile "cream puffs".

Reminds me of many years ago, shopping for a used car for the wife. She
wanted an Olds Cutlass Supeme RWD, early 80's style. One of the dealers
I work with had two, one '82 with 125,000 miles (very high miles for
it's age at the time), original EVERYTHING, hoses, belts, etc, but
obvious signs of loving maintenance...appeared it was highway driven by
someone who travelled for a living...and an '83 that had only 33,000
miles, no doubt some elderly person's car (even had the old person
smell)...but the brakes felt weird, as if partially seized, the motor
idled jittery, and it had the beginnings of an intake manifold leak up
front, tires dry rotted, etc...

Guess which one we bought? Yup. Paid less than half what they wanted
for the "cream puff", and had it until almost 300,000 miles, when the
tranny finally and suddenly ate it's last pancake...great car...