oil grades Toyota Rav4

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Sat 10 Jan 2004 18:06
oil grades Toyota Rav4 - tucks
I am interested in hearing what type/grade of oil owners have found best. are they mineral based.semi/sinthetic etc.
my owners manual contradicts what the garage people are telling me.i look forward to your comments
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Sat 10 Jan 2004 20:59
oil grades Toyota Rav4 - Ian D
Most cars (but not all, such as VW PD diesels) run on 10W-40 semi-synthetic oil which the dealers bulk buy from whoever does them a good deal. My local VW and Toyota dealers use Esso Ultra, local Subaru dealer uses Castrol Magnatec, Fiat dealer Shell Helix etc etc. As long as they meet the required specification and are of the right grade then I am sure they are all as good as each other and the frequency of oil/filter changes becomes the main factor in how well your car lasts.

What does the garage say and what does the manual say??
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Sun 11 Jan 2004 20:22
oil grades Toyota Rav4 - tucks
garage said 10W-40 when i asked if this was semi- synthetic they said no its mineral based which confused me.the manual says 10W-30 or 15W-40 multigrade, does multigrade refer to mineral or semi-synthetic ?
Regarding oil changes the manual states 15000km/1year which in my case will be 1year i think this is too long what do you think ?
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Sun 11 Jan 2004 20:37
oil grades Toyota Rav4 - John Shelton
The fact that the oil is a "multigrade" has no bearing on whether or not its semi or fully synthetic or mineral based its merely a measure of its viscosity. Some small Renaults have oil change intervals of 20,000 miles. I dont think a yearly oil change in a finely engineered vehicle like a RAV-4 is a problem as you imply you are covering less than 15000 KMS per annum.
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