My Tacoma, when it was young, would have clean oil after 12,000 miles. It is now 20 years old and has never had a repair, never needed any oil added. Oil can be tough stuff to break down. I spent a good part of my career drilling for oil which is 488,000,000 years old and still has good viscosity.
That's a great perspective. Interesting. I tend to run "good fluids" in our vehicles, but it's amazing how good the old oil looks when I change it. We've had three Lancruisers and latest almost 15 years old, and a baby mileage wise, at 140K. Knock on wood....all good.
Son has a 2002 Tacoma. That truck just impresses me to no end. He bought it in 2008, with about 60K miles. It's been across the country at least a dozen times. I think he has about 250K on it. Last time I saw it, it looked new. Has no hint of needing a clutch. Blows me away how many miles he gets out of a set of rotors and pads. He has upgraded and upsized to Tundra front brakes. He plans on running it as long as he can. One of his coach buddies just topped 500K on his.
Son is good about changing fluids and filters, but doesn't get worked up if he's overdue. He's done two timing belts himself, a water pump. He jokes that he and the truck have a good relationship. Truck is not needy.
He has just sold his GF's Subie Outback, a 2006 3.0, which has been real needy. Pretty much the opposite, particularly as miles added up. List of "unexpected" things is off the charts.
It might have been a bad one. Maybe not.
But interesting to see the maintenance cost, build quality and "durability" of one versus the other.
He's convinced that the Tacoma would run on anything for gas, and would take a fair amount of neglect. A lot.
It might be the generation of Japanese vehicles. My kids crack up at a story that I tell about a woman who worked for me, and her Camry. This is 1992. We're having a weekly team meeting, and she is late. Never late. She comes in, apologizes and says that she had to drop the car off "for some service."
I joke that she never seems to do anything to the car. She explains that she bought it new, and brought it back as they recommended at 1K miles to change the oil. They told her it would take an hour, and it took four. Before Wifi, etc. So, being a smart woman she just NEVER took it back.
Now at 100K. No oil changes, no fluids, no brakes, obviously no filters and no things like spark plugs. Nothin'. She would start it, it ran, and all good. What brought her in was some brake noise. Later learned it was pretty much metal on metal.
I just had to give her a ride back at the end of the day. Just too curious. Now, she has a great personality and people like her, so this could be fun.
The service guys were equally good guys. And they had some fun with this. They replaced her oil pan {and did not charge her}, and they showed us the pan and about and inch and a half of crud solidly built up on it. They showed us a filter that had pretty much blown apart, so that oil could flow through it. The plugs were actually pretty good. You get the drill. They wanted to save this all as examples of how not to do it.
As she left, she said "See you in another 100K miles." I think she made it more like every 20K. She got rid of it when she wanted a Jeep, or maybe an Explorer, and it had 150K or so on it when traded. No service records. HaHa!
Some more "simple" vehicles of a decade plus ago just seemed to be able to take some hard use. And yeah, oil is tough stuff, IMO.
Still a believer that frequent fluid and filter changes are key. Cheap insurance.
Pretty interesting Tacoma on Bring a Trailer right now. 2002, 53K miles. Automatic. If it were a stick, could be very interesting.
They just keep on running. Pretty good reason that you see so many in ski country!
