Hello Scotty,
I plan to pick up a new 2023 RAV4, FWD, and gas in a few days. I must drive 150 miles after pick up, mainly on the highway speed limit of 70.
How should I drive for those initial miles?
When should I do the first oil change? I remember you mentioned using Castrol oil. RAV4 manual recommends 0w-16, and I've not seen many of them available online. Mobil 1 may be more available and cheaper at Walmart. I plan to keep it and drive for as long as possible.
Do you have a recommendation for motor oil? I'm going for 5,000 miles or six months.
Thank you for your time and assistance. I love your bits of advice. I wish I had watched your videos before my last two car purchases coming back from Japan.
Don't suddenly rev the engine and avoid very extreme sudden breaking, don't use cruise control; drive at various speeds.
Use any reputable and api certified brand of oil that meets your owner manual specifications. First oil change 1000 miles.
Then do it every 3k to 5k miles and change both oil and oil filter.
Also change the transmission fluid around 40k to 50k miles.
Thank you for the help.
Make sure to drive and various RPM's and speeds the first 500-1000 miles. But don't full throttle or do super fast accelerations. If you have to drive on their freeway, maybe exit every so often, so you aren't on a steady speed/RPM.
The manual will say to change the oil every 10K miles. But most here will recommend every 5K miles.
As for the specific oil, use what is recommended, 0W-16. For brands, I usually go with what they have at Costco, either Mobil1 or Kirkland. If not Costco, then I stick to the name brands, whichever is cheaper at the time, Castrol, Pennzoil, Quaker State, Valvoline. My default is Castrol if they are all the same price, since that is what I grew up with.
In a pinch, you can use 0W-20, but make sure to change it back to 0W-16 on your next oil change. I believe it says this in the manual.
FWIW, if you are buying new, the Toyota's usually come with Toyota Care for 2 years or 36,000 miles (or something like that). They will do complementary oil changes for you every 10K miles. Watch out though, they will try to upsell you on services when you take it in. And the upselling is even more pervasive when you get to higher mileage and out of your complementary services. Other than that, follow what is recommended in your owner's manual. It's basically oil changes, tire rotations, cabin filter, air filter, for the first 100K miles.
I might have missed some stuff, but check out the other folks here too. They know what they are talking about.
Thank you for the advice! I'm going to do my best to follow your recommendations. I will probably use Mobil1 since it's more available on 0w-16. For transmission oil, I will use stuff from Toyota dealers.