My 03 RX300 is hardly driven 1500 miles in 5 months. How often should I
change the oil, Every 5000 miles or 5 month intervals.

Tony

Sac Town T wrote:
If you generally warm the engine completely when you drive your car,
once a year should be ok if you only drive a little over 3000 miles in
that year. If you do short trips in cold weather, you should probably
change it twice a year even with few miles of driving.

You need to do whatever your owner's manual says to keep the warranty up.

If it were out of warranty, I'd use synthetic (more detergent) and do it
once a year along with the filter.

--

- GRL

"It's good to want things."

Steve Barr (philosopher, poet, humorist, chemist,
Visual Basic programmer)
"Sac Town T" <Tonyii (AT) softcom (DOT) net> wrote

The reason I use Mobil 1 is for better hot and cold protection. In Toronto,
we go from -30 to 100 and cold starts are nasty for any engine.

"New Owner" <wdg@[206.180.145.133]> wrote

New Owner wrote:
Synthetic "wears out" less, meaning its viscosity doesn't decrease as
much with age as mineral oil. Also, synthetic changes viscosity less
with temperature than regular oil.

New Owner wrote:

What's the
Synthetic "wears out" less, meaning its viscosity doesn't decrease as
much with age as mineral oil. Also, synthetic changes viscosity less
with temperature than regular oil. If you live in an area where it goes
from moderate temperature to very cold, the more constant viscosity is a
good thing, both for cold starts and for the engine.

I, personally don't use synthetic because if you live where they dump
megatons of salt on the roads as I do, the engine will outlast the body
of a car no matter what kind of oil you use, as long as you don't run
out of oil.

When we owned an RX 300, the dealer told us to change every 5k miles owing
to the oil gelling problem. Of course, the 5 k service is $150.00.

"Sac Town T" <Tonyii (AT) softcom (DOT) net> wrote

Tom,

$150 for an oil change is a total ripoff. I take a jug of Mobil 1 to my
dealership and have them perform the oil change. It costs about $22 for the
filter and labour and about $30 for the oil. The prices quoted are Canadian
$$.


"Tom Waugh" <twaugh5 (AT) cox (DOT) net> wrote

Lexus bills it as a "minor" service -- with a laundry list of checks. We
were also advised that not having service done by Lexus could complicate and
not assure warranty work, particularly when considering the oil gelling
problem. We traded on a Honda Pilot at our local Honda dealer who has always
treated me squarely. We have not been impressed with Lexus.

"Car Guy" <nothing (AT) something (DOT) com> wrote

That's total B.S. As long as you do the services in the book and keep
receipts, no auto manufacturer can deny warranty repairs. That being said,
the real danger of not doing the right services is in the long term AFTER
the warranty period. So as long as you change the oil and do the bigger
maintenance as per the book, don't worry about it. And don't OVERmaintain it
either.


"Tom Waugh" <twaugh5 (AT) cox (DOT) net> wrote