Lexus' Maintenance Schedule

[ilovelexus2007]

Do any of you here really follow Lexus' 6-month/5000 miles maintenance schedule? I was recently out of the country for vacation for 6 weeks, so I hadn't put too much mileage on my car yet. It's been 7 months now since I last had service, and I only put on 3500 miles since then. Do you think it's necessary to have the service now since it's over 6 months or I should wait until the car hit 5000-mile interval?

Btw, I'm thinking of doing the 15K maintenance, does it worth it? Does it include oil change and tires rotation in this 15K maintenance as well? How much? Anyone with experience, please share.

Thanks.

[Barefoot Bob]

I have the same problem you do. At times I drive very little so I may have 7 or 8 mionths on my oil befor it gets changed. The same thing happens with my collector cars witch will only get about 50 miles a year on them. What I do is add Lube Gard Enigine additive to my oil when doing the oil change. It keeps the acids from forming in the oil and the oil from braking down. When acids form in your oil it eats away at the babbitt used on the bearing surfaces and eventually ruining your engine.

[richard4u]

hi - in order to comply with the warrenty i am forced to change oil and filter every 6 months - i drive 2000 miles a year - i have been going to the subaru dealer which is close to my house and they charge about 20 dollars - the lexus dealer charges 99 dollars - if you look in the maint manual it specifies 6 months for oil changes - it goes by time not mileage - i think it is worth it to comply in case there is any doubt that you have done the warrenty work - the subaru dealer keeps records of my service and i manually update my service details on the lexus owners site = i think it is worth the effort i have to go thru = my opinion

[RX400h]

The reason why a time limit is imposed is because some people take short trips which are not sufficient to "burn off" moisture that can accumulate in the crankcase. If the trips you take are long enough so that the engine oil temperature reaches say, 200 degrees F, then extending the time limits when mileage is not exceeded is probably not dangerous at all. Still, if the vehicle is under warranty, it is best to follow the recommended oil change intervals for obvious reasons.

That being said, I may, now that my RX is out of warranty, use synthetic oil and extend my intervals to 1 year or 10,000 miles. An oil analysis will tell me if this is okay to do.

[ilovelexus2007]

Thanks all for all the advice! I commute 20 miles a day round trip to work and put in about 70 miles over the weekend, no short trips, so I think that should be long enough for the oil to warm up? I certainly don't want to do anything to jeopardize my warranty, but again, Lexus dealership charged me $46.85 just for an oil change last time, so I was wondering if it's worth it to go back there and have the service done before the 5000 miles interval hits. So you are saying we can bring our Lexus to say a Toyota dealership and have the 5000 miles service done, as long as we keep the service record, that would still count towards the fulfillment for our warranty?

As for the full synthetic oil, I know Lexus currently uses blended oil for RXs, do you think using full synthetic oil will extend the interval longer? I once talked to a service advisor and he told me that full synthetic oil doesn't mean longer interval oil change because the filter would still need to be changed every 6 months.

[RX400h]

Since we don't have an oil temperature monitor in our Lexus, I can tell you only how hot the oil in my Corvette gets after a 15-mile commute at 50 degrees F ambient temp. When I arrive at work, my oil temp. is between 186 and 210 (depending upon how aggressive my drive is). A 10-mile drive may not be sufficient to get your oil temperature up that high. However, a 70-mile drive on the weekend would certainly get rid of any moisture that has accumulated.

Yes, you can certainly have a Toyota dealership do the oil change and not jeopardize the warranty. Regarding synthetic oils: Many car owners have driven 10,000+ miles or waited more than one year before changing their synthetic oil and have found through an oil analysis that the oil was still protecting the engine, even though the oil filter had not been changed in between oil changes. Here's an interesting article about extended drain intervals:

http://news.carjunky.com/amsoil/exxonmobil...et_ab1439.shtml

The service advisor to whom you spoke should take a look at some of the oil analysis data that was presented to those (synthetic oil users) who left their filters in place for 10,000+ miles. I have read quite a few and now am confident that my engine would be well-protected, even after one year. Still, I may get my own analysis done to show others who many not believe.

[pauljcl]

The reason why a time limit is imposed is because some people take short trips which are not sufficient to "burn off" moisture that can accumulate in the crankcase. If the trips you take are long enough so that the engine oil temperature reaches say, 200 degrees F, then extending the time limits when mileage is not exceeded is probably not dangerous at all. Still, if the vehicle is under warranty, it is best to follow the recommended oil change intervals for obvious reasons.

That being said, I may, now that my RX is out of warranty, use synthetic oil and extend my intervals to 1 year or 10,000 miles. An oil analysis will tell me if this is okay to do.

I'm with you on that. I usually do a little less than 5K miles a year on my cars, and I use the "BMW" formula: change your oil once a year (synthetic) unless you have gone many miles (actually the BMW requirement with their synthetic is 15K miles or once a year, whichever is earlier). I haven't yet decided what to do on the new RX350....

[katzjamr]

my lexus dealer used to use the castrol synthetic blend and has now changed to a chevron bulk oil, i only discovered it when the sticker looked different on the windshield. they did drain the bulk oil and purchase some castrol for me when i asked, i now bring it into the dealer when i go for service.

[Jim Clark]

We follow the 5k oil change intervals on our RX. I believe our dealer just uses plain old dino oil. That should be fine for 5k miles, especially since the ICE is not on all the time. In my BMW, I use Amsoil and do it every 10k. An Amsoil dealer I spoke to said I could go to 15k or more with no problem.

[SW03ES]

I would do the mainenances according to the schedule. Its cheap assurance thay you'll never have a problem having warranty work authorized, and when you go to sell it a car with a perfect and documented maintenance history is always worth more.