Hi Scotty:
I have 2019 Avalon, Toyota recommends that I change oil every 10 K , do you recommend that?
thanks
1 year/5k miles. Universal recommendation.
Oil is cheap. Engines aren't. When you get outside of warranty and start having problems because of those 10k intervals, Toyota will happily sell you a new car.
He says in this video every 7500-10k is recommended with full synthetic. Personally I change mine every 3-4k with full synthetic. It’s black at 5k in mine.
You bring up a good point about oil breakdown (black by 5000 mi). If you are at 4 or 5000 miles and your oil is black and smells like gas, you need to change it, regardless what the manufacturer says. Lot different than if it’s light brown and smells like oil. Thanks
If you want to make your engine last, change it every 5k-6k.
These long oil change intervals are meant to wear your engine out faster - It's usually a trick that European car makers would do. Renault would recommend changing oil every 20k miles, and all of the old petrol Fluence ended up being huge oil burners. while ones where the oil was changed with a more reasonable interval would last 130k-150k miles.
In this engine tear-down he shows the damaged caused by long oil change intervals on one of the most bulletproof engines known to man
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsURUQE0wH8
On my cars, the manufacturers also recommend doing an oil change every 10k miles but I change the oil every 4k-5k simply because oil is way cheaper then an engine.
Also on the Avalon, change your transmission fluid frequently.
I don't subscribe to such long intervals for oil changes, never seen an oil that didn't need changing sooner(regardless which car mfg.). Also, use the oil life monitor as a guide but not when to change it, although some dealers will say otherwise. Last oil change before we traded our Civic showed 40% and is was black like ink. On our new Corolla SE 2.0 we'll be changing at 5k/6months.
