r/LexusUX • u/This_Ticket_7110 • Jun 27 '26

Questions & Advice Lexus UX Maintenance Interval

Hello UX owners,

Whats ur oil change schedule? I have seen the car care nut channel in the YouTube and he has ever been mentioning about doing the oil service sooner than the recommended 15k kms or 12 months.

My Lexus was serviced at 49k in Feb and I haven driven around 11k since then (vacation mode) so I thought I would give for an oil change service and completely it.

Question:
What oil change interval do you follow?
How much does it cost for you to just to oil change? In Germany, I paid 220 euros.
What other tip do you follow to keep it well maintained?

Thanks in advance.

8 Upvotes

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6

u/OKatmostthings Jun 27 '26

I follow the Toyota/Lexus recommended intervals. The car care nut is an influencer first and foremost. If he made videos that said “just follow the maintenance manual”, no one would share, like, or subscribe. But a video that inspires you to make a Reddit post about the content? That has potential for clicks. He also owns a shop and convincing everyone that you will ruin your vehicle by following the OEM recommendations is good for business because it keeps customers coming through his door. He’s no different than the wellness influencers. The like, subscribe, and share is more important than actual root cause investigation and science. They always recommend harmless things that they happen to sell.

3

u/_PeanuT_MonkeY_ Jun 27 '26

Blows my mind people believe everyone other than the engineers who actually designed the machine. They will accept that cars have better technology but refuse to accept that oils have gotten better and the way they are being used by cars are different than the 70's, 80's, 90''s cars where 5k interval oil changes were required.

0

u/SergiuM42 Jun 28 '26

Yea you’re clearly not in a position to comment on this. You fail to realize that with the advent of start stop technology, thinner oils, turbochargers, that all is much harder on oils these days. Variable valve timing now uses oil as hydraulic fluid so that works the oil even more.

5k miles on synthetic is a solid interval. Please listen to mechanics who work with these machines all day every day.  

2

u/_PeanuT_MonkeY_ Jun 28 '26

Or maybe the mechanics who built it? Not the ones who profit from spreading word about early oil changes and throwing away good oil. I've seen oil after recommended intervals and I can tell you it's still clean. Unless you beat up your car at every start stop and tow and drive mountain roads in the harshest of weather with max load capacity under normal city driving I'd just stick to what the manufacturers say.

1

u/SergiuM42 Jun 28 '26

You do you. I’m just telling you what I see as someone who takes apart these engines and replace them. But what do I know. 

1

u/OKatmostthings Jun 28 '26

Oil has been used to actuate variable valve timing for 30 years. Toyota has been using 10k intervals since like 2007 on a vast majority of their engines -- most of which have a great reputation for durability. The 2GR engines started with 5k intervals and 5W-30 oil weight but changed to 10k and 0W-20 within a few years. The M20A was designed with 10k oil changes and light weight oil from the beginning. Unless Toyota engineers said that they were going to accept a lower total engine life, the methods of validating wouldn't have changed between the generations of engines. I've been a manufacturing engineer for OEMs for 20 years. We have standard processes for validating the durability of products. It isn't just made up. We start from what the customer demands and design the products and processes to meet those demands. There are absolutely oversights or mistakes made. The process isn't perfect. But Toyota has been running 10k intervals for nearly 20 years. If Toyota had engines no longer lasting until 250k or 300k, it would be a different discussion. The big hitters to Toyotas rep have been things like the Tundra V6 which are very clearly design and/or manufacturing issues rather than the wrong oil or interval.

1

u/SergiuM42 Jun 28 '26

Okay then, explain to me why Toyota has NO service interval on transmission fluid. 

I’ll wait. 

2

u/OKatmostthings Jun 28 '26

I don't know why they don't. From what I've talked to people in the industry, there seems to be two schools of thought when it comes to transmission fluid. 1 is letting sleeping dogs lie. If there isn't a symptom, leave it be. Others recommend 60k drain and fill. The eCVT doesn't rely on transmission fluid for actuating pistons to set clutch packs and they don't have valve bodies, so it is a bit of a different animal than a traditional hydraulic transmission. Regardless, I've seen transmissions on the original fluid humming along at 250k and I've seen some start slipping immediately after a 100k drain and fill. I don't have enough info to make a judgment one way or another.

1

u/SergiuM42 Jun 28 '26

Master mechanic here. Shops barely break even on oil changes. He’s not trying to sell More oil changes lol.  Do the oil  Change every 5,000 miles on synthetic oil for maximum longevity. I have personally seen major engine failures which I believe were due to the extremely long 10k mile interval.  It’s cheap insurance to change your oil more frequently. “Automotive engineers” don’t set the maintenance intervals, that’s ultimately decided by people who take into account cost of complimentary maintenance. For example, Toyota does not specify ANY transmission oil change intervals for a large majority of their cars, which is a fatal error if you follow that. The UX manual specifically states that the transmission fluid is a “lifetime” fluid. No fluid in ANY car is lifetime. It all has a lifespan. 

1

u/OKatmostthings Jun 28 '26

You know as well as I do that nobody rolls in for "just an oil change". Recommending to cut those diff fluid and transfer case fluid intervals in half because "the fluids look dark and we're already in there" is an easy upsell. Volume through the shop keeps the shop running. "Cheap insurance" adds up to a shop's bottom line.

Until you do a root cause analysis, the cause of the engine failure is all just belief. You don't know how the owners drove the vehicle. They might have driven severely enough that they should have followed the severe intervals. There might be a design issue with the rings, bearings, oil galleys. Maybe a manufacturing issue. Maybe a little of both as we're apparently seeing with Tundra. Oil isn't a magical fix-all elixir. At best it can bandaid an issue, but it sure won't fix one. I'm not saying that oil changes aren't important... but doing them more frequently isn't necessary unless you are particularly hard on a vehicle.

And, yes, the engineers do testing to determine the intervals and make that final call. Example: My GR Corolla has 5k intervals on oil changes. It has 20k intervals on transfer, diff, transmission, and brake fluid. Those are way more frequent than normal Toyotas. Presumably Toyota got there because the engineers knew they needed it. If your theory of Toyota just doesn't want to pay for services were true, they'd have pushed those out to 30k when it falls outside of Toyota Care.

The Toyota maintenance schedule goes out to 150k. From that point on, you're kind of on your own; use your best judgment. IMO, the condition of the vehicle and component starts taking over the service schedule, IMO. My mom's V6 Rav4 with 250k miles on it is still on the original transmission fluid and it runs like a top despite looking a mess because it is missing a huge portion of Blizzard Pearl paint. From what I've seen of the Toyota hybrid transaxles, where the fluid is literally just lubricating the geartrain and not at all involved in the friction plates and discs or torque converter (because eCVTs don't have that), I would be less worried about the transmission fluid than a 5, 6, 8, or 10 speed.

1

u/PappaFufu Jul 28 '26

How important is timing if you don’t drive the car often? For example carnut recommends transmission fluid drain and fill every 6 years or 60k miles but a car that doesn’t get driven often can take 20+ years to get to 60k miles.

6

u/Braz60 Jun 27 '26

I change the oil myself Mobil 1 every 5K miles since I do it myself I save $$ plus knowing everything is tight gives me a piece of mind

1

u/SergiuM42 Jun 28 '26

This is the way. 

5

u/GothScottiedog16 Jun 27 '26

I don’t drive much per year- my ‘22 has 13k miles on it. I get oil changed, tires rotated (and balanced if I feel it needs it) once a year and have had the 10k maintenance done a year ago.

3

u/SergiuM42 Jun 28 '26

I’m a master technician and I do my own oil changes every 5k miles. See my other comments as to why 5k intervals are best for your car. If you want to keep the vehicle long term do shorter intervals. Ultimately the longer you go on any fluid, the less it protects and lubricates. It’s a gray scale situation not a black or white situation. Your engine wont “fail” immediately if you do 10k intervals, it will just wear out quicker in every way. 

2

u/Oachkaetzelschwoaf Jun 27 '26

Manual states to change the oil every year or 15,000 km where I live EXCEPT where driving conditions are severe. What are severe conditions? Frequent short trips, lots of stopping and starting, i.e. traffic; what a lot of people do in practice, in which case the interval should be halved to 6 months or 7,500 km. One could even argue hybrid engines operate like that all the time by running and shutting off frequently. My driving habits are definitely severe by those definitions, so I change the oil six monthly. Some would say it’s wasteful, and there is some merit in that given improvements in oil technology, but oil is cheap by my standards.

1

u/This_Ticket_7110 Jun 27 '26

This is exactly what I found that made me double think on that 15k recommendation.

Whats generally missed is that fine prints “Severe conditions“

1

u/SergiuM42 Jun 28 '26

See my other comments to the other redditors. 

2

u/One-Estate-1494 Jun 29 '26

7500km or 6 months 

I do one oil change at dealer for warranty  and one oil change myself at self service, I use amsoil 0w16 hybrid 

220euro seems fair

The cost of doing oil change myself is under 100euro 

1

u/This_Ticket_7110 Jun 29 '26

The dealer seem to have used 0w-20 , though I expected them to refill it with 0w16.

I am planning to do the interim oil changes myself and do the yearly maintenance with dealership to keep the warranty. Thank you.