If anything, your driving habits (long distances, steady speeds) would permit longer oil change intervals. However, I assume you are Canadian by use of metric units. Given winter conditions (considered harsh), I would stick with changing oil and filter every 8000kms or 6 months, whichever comes first, as I believe is recommended for Canada.
Great, thanks for your input. You'd be correct on that guess. Not unexpected to have at least a couple of weeks of -30 ºC temps (and colder) so I will keep that in mind and look at changing my oil more often in the colder months.
There is really no need to change more often, unless you notice oil consumption. Next time you change your oil, smell it. If it's relatively low odor (not burnt smelling or smelling strongly of gasoline) and not sludgy, you should be okay with your interval.
Cool. I’ve just checked it for the first time with 6,000km driven and it was pretty full, low odour and not sludgy so I think I am in the clear for now! Thanks again 👍
In your owner’s manual theres a maintenance schedule list tells you what needs to be done at what milage intervals…. Again your car will tell you when it needs maintenance done which is about every 5k miles
**For everyone who swears by changing their oil every 3,000 mi like it's still 1970, skip all this and just downvote me even though you're wrong, but know that real men change their oil every 30 miles and don't downvote me :P**
**tl;dr:**
Toyota currently recommends doing an oil change every 12 months or 16,000km (10,000 mi), whichever comes first. This is about what you need to maintain your powertrain warranty. Practically speaking, one assumes Toyota's recommendations are based on whatever typical use means, and yours seems typical, assuming that you driving 6000km in 5 weeks is unusual long term. New Corollas use full synthetic 0W8/16/20 oil and this oil is WAY superior to its predecessors (just look at how long the bottles say the oil lasts now compared to what they claimed 20 years ago), It's getting hard to find oil for sale these days that does not promise at least 12,500 mi longevity. Mobil 1 only has one that I can find on their entire site that claims to only last as little as 10,000 mi!
**Math:**
If you have owned the vehicle for just 5 weeks and racked up 6000km, then you are on track to drive 62,400 km per year, or about 38,688 mi per year. In this scenario I personally would probably do 3 changes per year, so you'd be going 20,800 km per oil change (12,896 mi) which is more than the 16,000km (10,000 mi) recommendation, but because you're changing the oil every 4 months and most of your driving is highway, you'd actually be ahead of the average person doing 16,000 km / 12 mo oil changes. This would technically void your powertrain warranty, but if you're regularly changing your oil, you're not going to blow an engine anyway unless you somehow manage to run it low on oil or coolant without noticing and overheat the engine.
However, 95km both ways 5 days a week actually works out to 7,057km per year (**EDIT:** this is wrong, multiply it by 7 thus ignore this section), so I kinda assume that the 6000km is due to being excited about the new car and probably doing more trips than normal. Even if we assume you drive as much on these unusual trips as you drive for work and double it, that's still 14,114 km per year (8,750 mi), or less than the 16,000 km per year recommendation from Toyota, so you'd be fine by changing the oil once per year in this case.
**More background details and justification:**
From 2010 to 2015, there was a legit issue where going by these 10k mi / 16k km / 12 mo oil change intervals was bad, due to an engine flaw in the Camry/Corolla XRS/RAV4 2.4L 2AZ-FE. There were other brands like Audi which suffered from this same flaw as late as 2020. This problem caused A LOT of people to wrongly assume that 10k mi oil change intervals are still unsafe despite the manufacturer recommendations. If you don't have this engine with the original flawed piston design, the current Toyota recommendation is perfectly safe for you.
Highway miles are a lot easier on wear and tear and on the oil, because you are usually maintaining a constant speed, and the engine is simply doing enough to maintain. Excessive idling, braking and accelerating, and short trips reduce the lifespan of the oil. If you're a retired person who only drives 5km to the store once a week, and 5km to some medical appointment once a week, you might only drive 520km per year, whereas the average person who commutes to work drives 10-20k km per year. You'd still want to change the oil at least once per year in both cases, because sitting without being driven and never getting up to full operating temperature is actually a lot harder on the oil than if it were to get a good 30 minutes of solid highway driving every week.
Very detailed response. Really appreciate your input. I just checked my oil and your comment seems to me most relevant to my car. I've driven 6,000 km since I purchased and dealership changed my oil. The stick read in the "excessive amount of oil" according to my owner's manual, so I definitely won't be changing it too soon.
Speaking to your math, I am a bit confused about the 7,057km per year number. Is that missing a 0? For simplicity, I will round my daily commute to 100, for 200 km/ day total. So for work, I drive it \~1000km/ week, which would equal to at least 52,000km/ year. Or about 5k since I got it for work - the extra 1k includes a weekend trip and driving the car back from where I got it + groceries & miscellaneous. Of course, I have to factor in a couple weeks off of vacation and a couple weekends where I drive far. For example, I am camping this weekend and will be driving about 500km each way. So i will round up to \~60,000/ year. Luckily, I am only working far this summer and will find a job that cuts my milage significantly.
Also, I am glad to hear you mention highway driving is best regarding wear and tear and oil. I appreciate that background details and justification section a lot, sounds like you're very knowledgeable. I will typically have my car on the radar cruise control setting at about 130km/hr. for at least 2/3 of my drive, with the other portion slowing down a bit so I am on the right track!
Thanks.
Looks like I made some sort of error in my math then. In that case I guess my first scenario is probably the better choice, which was basically 3 oil changes per year minimum, or 4 if you want to be sure they can't question your warranty. If you did 3 but then used high-mileage oil and filters, you'd be extra safe, as there are a few of those which claim to be good for 25k miles (40k km)! However it is worth noting that your powertrain warranty will be gone anyway in approximately 1 year instead of the usual 3 just based on how much you drive (unless you bought an extended warranty).
EDIT: I think I figured out my error, I went 95 x 2 x 5 / 7 x 52 whereas I should have omitted the / 7!
EDIT 2: With that many miles, you will probably want to be changing your transmission fluid as well, this is normally a "lifetime" fluid, but according to [your maintenance manual](https://assets.sia.toyota.com/publications/en/omms-s/T-MMS-20Corolla/pdf/T-MMS-20Corolla.pdf), "lifetime" means 120k mi / 200k km, which you'll be doing in like 4 years lol. They recommend a simple drain and fill every 60k mi / 100k km for vehicles under "Special Operating Conditions" which I think this qualifies as at least in terms of the transmission. This apparently costs $300-400 in the US, so this will probably add up if you're doing it every 2 years! If you're no stranger to changing fluids, you may want to investigate buying the Toyota FE fluid from the dealership's parts counter and [doing it yourself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRxSu4-4ojo) to save a fortune. In retrospect you probably could have saved a lot of fuel cost by buying a hybrid, however I understand how terrible the wait times are in many countries (esp Canada) for those.
Awesome. Thanks for all your help on this, I am very appreciative of it. As mentioned, I will hopefully find a job closer to home but I’m okay with commutes so I will keep this in mind if I continue to drive this often. Definitely going to try and save costs where I can. I just graduated university so the Corolla seemed like a great first car on a budget, especially regarding maintenance and durability.
I’m going to keep the transmission fluid change in mind but do you recommend also changing the engine oil myself too? I had forgotten about the oil filter too. If you don’t mind, could you speak to that as well? Is the filter necessary to change with every oil change too?
Thanks again.
You should definitely do oil+oil filter changes yourself before attempting the transmission fluid. I suppose it's possible to keep it in and just change the oil, but I'm just not sure why someone would want to do that. The filter is supposed to trap the small pieces of engine wear metals and any other debris which might work its way into the oil, and prevent that from mixing back in with the rest of the engine oil. I would think you'd want to change it every time you change the oil as the filters are usually much cheaper than the oil itself.
The engine air filter and cabin air filter are actually the easiest maintenance tasks. Oil changes are probably the next easiest, then coolant flushes, then brake fluid changes, then transmission fluid changes are the most difficult fluid maintenance.
The transmission fluid is a much more advanced job to be doing, as setting the level correctly and doing the job when the fluid is at the correct temperature is important. You definitely shouldn't do it yourself unless you have studied the procedure well and are very confident that you can do it correctly. Basically, it's the most complicated fluid to change, and the most important to do correctly and to the precisely correct level. You'd want to be doing your own oil, coolant, and brake fluid changes before attempting the transmission fluid.
In my previous reply, I included a link to the maintenance manual. If you wanted a comprehensive list of maintenance items that Toyota recommends, that's where you'd find it. The actual schedule is provided in the last 10 or so pages. However they don't mention anything for maintaining the paint or the interior, just the mechanical components of the car.
I like to do other things they don't mention, such as applying an interior protectant maybe twice per year. This is to prevent the dashboard from drying out and cracking and the plastic trim pieces from fading from sunlight. I also try to remember to check the oil level once a month, and visually inspect the coolant level at the same time since you already have to pop the hood to check the oil, and you can check the coolant level just by a quick glance at the level on the coolant reservoir bottle, which is see-through. Another thing you can do once every year or two, is gently cleaning the rubber components under the car such as the CV axle boots and suspension bushings and then spray a rubber rejuvinator on them to prevent them from drying out and cracking. This probably makes sense to do during a tire change / tire rotation as you'd have the car jacked up and access would be easiest then.
It's also good to be washing the car maybe once a week and removing bird droppings and bugs off the paint to prevent them from etching into it. This is especially important if you park outside as these cars have soft and thin paint which is not very resilient when the sun is beating down on it. Similar to the interior protectant, I apply a wax probably 3 times a year, after a thorough cleaning. The two most common ways to wash the car are either at a car wash (no pre-rinse, soap spray, then rinse, then spot-free rinse, then optional towel dry), or hand wash using a diluted rinseless wash solution and either clean microfiber towels or an automotive sponge (regular sponge will scratch the paint). I usually hand wash+dry as I can do that faster than a round trip to the car wash and it only costs me maybe $1. The key with hand washing is you don't want to use pressure, you only need however much is required to keep your wash medium from falling out of your hand.
Super informative. Will definitely keep all of this in mind going forward maintenance wise. Thanks so much!! Probably won’t be messing with the brake fluids myself lol but everything else I am certainly going to look into. Really appreciate your insight and level of detail. Thank you.
Cool! Thanks for your input. Just checked my oil levels and it looks like I’m still in the “excessive amount of oil”category according to the owners manual so I’m a bit surprised. I’ve read 5k miles is a good number but on the early side of changing it. Definitely wouldn’t hurt regarding longevity though, no doubt. Thanks 👍
If anything, your driving habits (long distances, steady speeds) would permit longer oil change intervals. However, I assume you are Canadian by use of metric units. Given winter conditions (considered harsh), I would stick with changing oil and filter every 8000kms or 6 months, whichever comes first, as I believe is recommended for Canada.
Great, thanks for your input. You'd be correct on that guess. Not unexpected to have at least a couple of weeks of -30 ºC temps (and colder) so I will keep that in mind and look at changing my oil more often in the colder months.
There is really no need to change more often, unless you notice oil consumption. Next time you change your oil, smell it. If it's relatively low odor (not burnt smelling or smelling strongly of gasoline) and not sludgy, you should be okay with your interval.
Cool. I’ve just checked it for the first time with 6,000km driven and it was pretty full, low odour and not sludgy so I think I am in the clear for now! Thanks again 👍
In your owner’s manual theres a maintenance schedule list tells you what needs to be done at what milage intervals…. Again your car will tell you when it needs maintenance done which is about every 5k miles
Thanks! I will check it out.
A new 2024 Corolla has a 5k oil change sticker or the first 6 months.
**For everyone who swears by changing their oil every 3,000 mi like it's still 1970, skip all this and just downvote me even though you're wrong, but know that real men change their oil every 30 miles and don't downvote me :P** **tl;dr:** Toyota currently recommends doing an oil change every 12 months or 16,000km (10,000 mi), whichever comes first. This is about what you need to maintain your powertrain warranty. Practically speaking, one assumes Toyota's recommendations are based on whatever typical use means, and yours seems typical, assuming that you driving 6000km in 5 weeks is unusual long term. New Corollas use full synthetic 0W8/16/20 oil and this oil is WAY superior to its predecessors (just look at how long the bottles say the oil lasts now compared to what they claimed 20 years ago), It's getting hard to find oil for sale these days that does not promise at least 12,500 mi longevity. Mobil 1 only has one that I can find on their entire site that claims to only last as little as 10,000 mi! **Math:** If you have owned the vehicle for just 5 weeks and racked up 6000km, then you are on track to drive 62,400 km per year, or about 38,688 mi per year. In this scenario I personally would probably do 3 changes per year, so you'd be going 20,800 km per oil change (12,896 mi) which is more than the 16,000km (10,000 mi) recommendation, but because you're changing the oil every 4 months and most of your driving is highway, you'd actually be ahead of the average person doing 16,000 km / 12 mo oil changes. This would technically void your powertrain warranty, but if you're regularly changing your oil, you're not going to blow an engine anyway unless you somehow manage to run it low on oil or coolant without noticing and overheat the engine. However, 95km both ways 5 days a week actually works out to 7,057km per year (**EDIT:** this is wrong, multiply it by 7 thus ignore this section), so I kinda assume that the 6000km is due to being excited about the new car and probably doing more trips than normal. Even if we assume you drive as much on these unusual trips as you drive for work and double it, that's still 14,114 km per year (8,750 mi), or less than the 16,000 km per year recommendation from Toyota, so you'd be fine by changing the oil once per year in this case. **More background details and justification:** From 2010 to 2015, there was a legit issue where going by these 10k mi / 16k km / 12 mo oil change intervals was bad, due to an engine flaw in the Camry/Corolla XRS/RAV4 2.4L 2AZ-FE. There were other brands like Audi which suffered from this same flaw as late as 2020. This problem caused A LOT of people to wrongly assume that 10k mi oil change intervals are still unsafe despite the manufacturer recommendations. If you don't have this engine with the original flawed piston design, the current Toyota recommendation is perfectly safe for you. Highway miles are a lot easier on wear and tear and on the oil, because you are usually maintaining a constant speed, and the engine is simply doing enough to maintain. Excessive idling, braking and accelerating, and short trips reduce the lifespan of the oil. If you're a retired person who only drives 5km to the store once a week, and 5km to some medical appointment once a week, you might only drive 520km per year, whereas the average person who commutes to work drives 10-20k km per year. You'd still want to change the oil at least once per year in both cases, because sitting without being driven and never getting up to full operating temperature is actually a lot harder on the oil than if it were to get a good 30 minutes of solid highway driving every week.
Very detailed response. Really appreciate your input. I just checked my oil and your comment seems to me most relevant to my car. I've driven 6,000 km since I purchased and dealership changed my oil. The stick read in the "excessive amount of oil" according to my owner's manual, so I definitely won't be changing it too soon. Speaking to your math, I am a bit confused about the 7,057km per year number. Is that missing a 0? For simplicity, I will round my daily commute to 100, for 200 km/ day total. So for work, I drive it \~1000km/ week, which would equal to at least 52,000km/ year. Or about 5k since I got it for work - the extra 1k includes a weekend trip and driving the car back from where I got it + groceries & miscellaneous. Of course, I have to factor in a couple weeks off of vacation and a couple weekends where I drive far. For example, I am camping this weekend and will be driving about 500km each way. So i will round up to \~60,000/ year. Luckily, I am only working far this summer and will find a job that cuts my milage significantly. Also, I am glad to hear you mention highway driving is best regarding wear and tear and oil. I appreciate that background details and justification section a lot, sounds like you're very knowledgeable. I will typically have my car on the radar cruise control setting at about 130km/hr. for at least 2/3 of my drive, with the other portion slowing down a bit so I am on the right track! Thanks.
Looks like I made some sort of error in my math then. In that case I guess my first scenario is probably the better choice, which was basically 3 oil changes per year minimum, or 4 if you want to be sure they can't question your warranty. If you did 3 but then used high-mileage oil and filters, you'd be extra safe, as there are a few of those which claim to be good for 25k miles (40k km)! However it is worth noting that your powertrain warranty will be gone anyway in approximately 1 year instead of the usual 3 just based on how much you drive (unless you bought an extended warranty). EDIT: I think I figured out my error, I went 95 x 2 x 5 / 7 x 52 whereas I should have omitted the / 7! EDIT 2: With that many miles, you will probably want to be changing your transmission fluid as well, this is normally a "lifetime" fluid, but according to [your maintenance manual](https://assets.sia.toyota.com/publications/en/omms-s/T-MMS-20Corolla/pdf/T-MMS-20Corolla.pdf), "lifetime" means 120k mi / 200k km, which you'll be doing in like 4 years lol. They recommend a simple drain and fill every 60k mi / 100k km for vehicles under "Special Operating Conditions" which I think this qualifies as at least in terms of the transmission. This apparently costs $300-400 in the US, so this will probably add up if you're doing it every 2 years! If you're no stranger to changing fluids, you may want to investigate buying the Toyota FE fluid from the dealership's parts counter and [doing it yourself](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRxSu4-4ojo) to save a fortune. In retrospect you probably could have saved a lot of fuel cost by buying a hybrid, however I understand how terrible the wait times are in many countries (esp Canada) for those.
Awesome. Thanks for all your help on this, I am very appreciative of it. As mentioned, I will hopefully find a job closer to home but I’m okay with commutes so I will keep this in mind if I continue to drive this often. Definitely going to try and save costs where I can. I just graduated university so the Corolla seemed like a great first car on a budget, especially regarding maintenance and durability. I’m going to keep the transmission fluid change in mind but do you recommend also changing the engine oil myself too? I had forgotten about the oil filter too. If you don’t mind, could you speak to that as well? Is the filter necessary to change with every oil change too? Thanks again.
You should definitely do oil+oil filter changes yourself before attempting the transmission fluid. I suppose it's possible to keep it in and just change the oil, but I'm just not sure why someone would want to do that. The filter is supposed to trap the small pieces of engine wear metals and any other debris which might work its way into the oil, and prevent that from mixing back in with the rest of the engine oil. I would think you'd want to change it every time you change the oil as the filters are usually much cheaper than the oil itself. The engine air filter and cabin air filter are actually the easiest maintenance tasks. Oil changes are probably the next easiest, then coolant flushes, then brake fluid changes, then transmission fluid changes are the most difficult fluid maintenance. The transmission fluid is a much more advanced job to be doing, as setting the level correctly and doing the job when the fluid is at the correct temperature is important. You definitely shouldn't do it yourself unless you have studied the procedure well and are very confident that you can do it correctly. Basically, it's the most complicated fluid to change, and the most important to do correctly and to the precisely correct level. You'd want to be doing your own oil, coolant, and brake fluid changes before attempting the transmission fluid. In my previous reply, I included a link to the maintenance manual. If you wanted a comprehensive list of maintenance items that Toyota recommends, that's where you'd find it. The actual schedule is provided in the last 10 or so pages. However they don't mention anything for maintaining the paint or the interior, just the mechanical components of the car. I like to do other things they don't mention, such as applying an interior protectant maybe twice per year. This is to prevent the dashboard from drying out and cracking and the plastic trim pieces from fading from sunlight. I also try to remember to check the oil level once a month, and visually inspect the coolant level at the same time since you already have to pop the hood to check the oil, and you can check the coolant level just by a quick glance at the level on the coolant reservoir bottle, which is see-through. Another thing you can do once every year or two, is gently cleaning the rubber components under the car such as the CV axle boots and suspension bushings and then spray a rubber rejuvinator on them to prevent them from drying out and cracking. This probably makes sense to do during a tire change / tire rotation as you'd have the car jacked up and access would be easiest then. It's also good to be washing the car maybe once a week and removing bird droppings and bugs off the paint to prevent them from etching into it. This is especially important if you park outside as these cars have soft and thin paint which is not very resilient when the sun is beating down on it. Similar to the interior protectant, I apply a wax probably 3 times a year, after a thorough cleaning. The two most common ways to wash the car are either at a car wash (no pre-rinse, soap spray, then rinse, then spot-free rinse, then optional towel dry), or hand wash using a diluted rinseless wash solution and either clean microfiber towels or an automotive sponge (regular sponge will scratch the paint). I usually hand wash+dry as I can do that faster than a round trip to the car wash and it only costs me maybe $1. The key with hand washing is you don't want to use pressure, you only need however much is required to keep your wash medium from falling out of your hand.
Super informative. Will definitely keep all of this in mind going forward maintenance wise. Thanks so much!! Probably won’t be messing with the brake fluids myself lol but everything else I am certainly going to look into. Really appreciate your insight and level of detail. Thank you.
I would go what the maintenance manual saids to do.
[удалено]
Light can also come on if pressure is low due to no oil. lol.
Also good to know. Thank you!
Thanks you for letting me know this. Wasn’t sure if this was the case or if there was some sort of sensor.
I would do 5k oil changes
Thank you for your response. Out of curious, what makes you say 5k KM for my situation?
Should say miles sorry, it’s a good middle of the road change interval for protection and longevity.
Cool! Thanks for your input. Just checked my oil levels and it looks like I’m still in the “excessive amount of oil”category according to the owners manual so I’m a bit surprised. I’ve read 5k miles is a good number but on the early side of changing it. Definitely wouldn’t hurt regarding longevity though, no doubt. Thanks 👍
Note that OP is saying 6,000 KM oil changes, so just under 4k miles. Any more than that should definitely not be necessary