I would add something more, but I agree with everything Animal said. I've driven my Spyder like I stole it from day one. Still good ole Dino juice and 87 octane for me. I use Chevron gas only (whenever possible).

 

Originally posted by Animal
Oil
Synthetic oil is a POTENTIAL TIME BOMB in a NEW MR2 engine. The VAST majority of failed engines have been running synthetic oil. Typically, the owners changed to synthetic oil "first thing". Not a good idea. If you MUST put synthetic motor oil in this car, wait AT LEAST 5,000 miles. And speaking of 5,000 miles, that's a dman™ easy interval to remember when to change your oil. Do the oil AND the filter EVERY time.
Now, let the other nations be heard from.

Was always curious why the whites were so slow (grin).


Mine has been running synthetic since 2800 miles old (bought used). I have beaten the piss out of this car since then as well. No precats, no worries. Doesn't consume enough oil to matter between changes, 5 - 6k miles for the filter and 15 - 18k miles for the oil and filter, and has about 43k miles on it so far. Have noticed some excessive tire consumption though.

This is not to say that the car won't spontaneously combust tomorrow when I turn the key, just that it hasn't yet.

 

I have been using Mobil 1 synthetic since 2000 miles, and change it every 4000. I have 77,000 miles on it, drive somewhat "spirited", but mostly take it easy. At most, I use about 1/4 quart in 4000 miles.

 

No break-in period for me. I have always driven cars hard during break-in and they always perform well and rarely have problems, none ever engine related.

I run regular oil, but I do change it and the filter every 3000 miles. I have done that with every car I've owned for the last 20+ years and haven't had an engine problem yet.

I switched to 91+ octane at about 15K, mainly because Argiope (who has 83K on his yellow and 30K+ on his green with no problems) convinced me it was a good thing to do. I know there are a lot of opinions on this, but that's really all they are. I trust David's judgment on this one.

 

WOW, Some of you going 5,000 miles between oil changes?!?!?!?!
3 months or 3,000 miles (which ever come first) is what I've always done.

 

Originally posted by KOZMO
WOW, Some of you going 5,000 miles between oil changes?!?!?!?!
3 months or 3,000 miles (which ever come first) is what I've always done.

Werd. I do this religiously. When I saw the manual says 7500 miles between changes I laughed myself silly.

 

Originally posted by ekoesling+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ekoesling)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-KOZMO

WOW, Some of you going 5,000 miles between oil changes?!?!?!?!
3 months or 3,000 miles (which ever come first) is what I've always done.

Werd. I do this religiously. When I saw the manual says 7500 miles between changes I laughed myself silly.[/b]

Look at your oil at 3K. Does it really look like it needs to go?
Didn't Consumer Reports do a big debunking issue on this a while ago, deciding that modern engines and oils simply don't need 3K lube jobs? I realize Jiffy Lube will swear up and down this is not so, but in terms of both time/expense to you and environmental impact, if the car doesn't need the work, why do it?
As someone who drives 2,500 miles in a month, I'm looking at changing the oil and filter every 5-6K and have not seen any good reason to deviate from that. I will say that if you only drive a fraction of that, you shouldn't wait a year to roll over 5K or 7.5K miles because time is a big factor too.

 

It seems like my oil stays clean/yellow/clear for a long time, then all of a sudden, it goes black/brown/cloudy.
Then I change it. Ends up being about every 5K miles.

 

Originally posted by ekoesling+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ekoesling)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-KOZMO

WOW, Some of you going 5,000 miles between oil changes?!?!?!?!
3 months or 3,000 miles (which ever come first) is what I've always done.

Werd. I do this religiously. When I saw the manual says 7500 miles between changes I laughed myself silly.[/b]

jessh guys thats babying the modern engine a little there. Remember in Europe our oil change is every 10k.

Still people are worried about the engine problems so its understandable.

 

You change your oil every 10 kilometers! How the hell do you ever get to where you're going? It must take you ages!

:shock:

 

Originally posted by Gibeon
You change your oil every 10 kilometers! How the hell do you ever get to where you're going? It must take you ages!

:shock:

ha ha :roll:

10K as in 10.000

and miles.

 

Originally posted by WoodenDummy+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (WoodenDummy)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Gibeon

You change your oil every 10 kilometers! How the hell do you ever get to where you're going? It must take you ages!

:shock:

ha ha :roll:

10K as in 10.000

and miles.[/b]

--documentary-style voiceover--

What WoodenDummy didn't realize was that, in the US, a comma is used to separate thousands and a period is used as the decimal point. He was therefore oblivious that his post continued to confound Americans, as it suggested 10 (rather than 10,000) miles.

 

Don't "baby" it, but don't be particularly hard on it for at least the first 1000 miles... I went 3000 without hitting the rev limit once. Now I do quite often, but not every day (could, though). During first 500 miles, avoid driving in a small RPM range for a long time. I read this in the manual (I think).

Change oil yourself after 1000 miles and examine it, put your fingers in it and see whats in there, metal-wise, strain it through a paper towel. I'm funny that way.

Change oil and filter at every 3000 interval.

I noticed the synthetic pattern here and chose to gamble that it may not be good. Used Mobil 1 in previous cars, though, based on lots of evidence that it prolongs engine life. I also had good luck with Castrol GTX in another car.

87 should be fine and so should 89. Stick with one or two brands, the better ones. You can find info on fuel quality/consistency on the net. I even go to the same stations. Of course, I am running 93 but only because of a different ECU.

I try to avoid winding it up to redline in first gear, except at autocross and on other rare occasions. It seems to me that this is the most stressful thing you can do to the engine... maximum load.

 

My experience with the motor has been........... um bad. I have had a new shortblock apart after only 1400 miles. The bores were scored on both sides and the rings did not seat. They told me to beat on it as soon as I left the parking lot. I did. It didn't. I took the third shortblock and babied it for 1000 miles and have had no oil consumption at all for 20k miles. The other 2 motors had consumption by then. My .02.

I think the early model cars bores were out of spec as kingspyder said he found in his teardown.

 

Originally posted by Beanie
I try to avoid winding it up to redline in first gear, except at autocross and on other rare occasions. It seems to me that this is the most stressful thing you can do to the engine... maximum load.

how is that maximum load? First gear offers the highest degree of mechanical advantage to the motor. I do have concerns with revving it up without enough load though, like in neutral or spinning the tires throughout first gear.

 

Inertia is greatest when you are at rest / are just starting out (in first, it so happens). To rev to the limit it is to step on it fully and don't you do this right off the bat? It is then that the max. load is experienced, when flooring it from a standstill. Right?

 

that would explain engine replacements I guess

 

my bad, I thought you were talking about a load on the engine.

How is the inertia of a constant mass greatest when it is still? I don't remember much from physics, but I think that statement is not true.

 

The point of the highest Newtons per second? I forget what unit that would be called. I'm pretty sure unidirectional inertia = p = momentum = mv; inertia would be the least possible standing still.

 

More force is required to move an object at rest than is required to move an object already in motion.

 

Originally posted by LittleRocket
My experience with the motor has been........... um bad. I have had a new shortblock apart after only 1400 miles. The bores were scored on both sides and the rings did not seat. They told me to beat on it as soon as I left the parking lot. I did. It didn't. I took the third shortblock and babied it for 1000 miles and have had no oil consumption at all for 20k miles. The other 2 motors had consumption by then. My .02.

I think the early model cars bores were out of spec as kingspyder said he found in his teardown.

I think the issue here we're talking about is break in. In the case of a car that you buy off the lot at Toyota, or probably even one that comes directly from a port with less than 5 miles on it, I think the engine is already "broken in," so to speak, for the most part at the factory. That's why romping on it as you leave the dealer won't really hurt it.

In the case of some who've had warranty replacements, such as LR, it's a different story. If they replaced only the shortblock it sounds like they actually put the pistons and rings back in themselves and then the rest of the motor back together. So...telling you to romp on it as soon as you leave the dealer is definately a bad idea on a motor that just went back together. Modern engines do require very little break in, but the rings do still have to seat first before you beat on it unless you don't mind taking an expensive chance.

It's the opinion of many people that on many modern engines it doesn't even take maybe 50 miles for the rings to seat, but on the safe side I'd say a couple hundred just in case. If you want to know, just do a compression test. I compression checked mine after 250 miles on the newly rebuilt motor and they were seated, that's also when I did my first oil change to look for any problems with the break in.

 

Inertia is based entirely off of mass, velocity and direction have nothing to do with it.

Besides, if first gear presented a 'maximum load' on our engine...you'd be telling me that an engine revs quicker under load. First gear offers the most mechanical advantage (ignoring reverse) to the motor, therefore it presents the least amount of load on the engine to rev through its rpm range.

rande - I believe you are referring to a characteristic of friction, not intertia. Inertia exists in a frictionless environment.

where's fizxtoy...he knows all regarding this mess.

 

Seems if maximum force was inflicted on the engine from a stop, the dyno would show maximum effective HP and torque a lot lower in the RPM range than it does.

I'm just guessing here, but doesn't a dyno measure the amount of force being exerted to move the drum beneath the wheels? Shouldn't that amount of necessary force translate to the amount of "load" discussed here?

Then again, I guess the argument can be made that the engine is *designed* to peak at higher horsepower, instead of, say 1,000 RPMs. Well, that may be true...but where the maximum load is exerted and maximum force applied is at 6000+ RPM's, regardless of gear.

I can't decide if all that makes sense. I'll shut up now.

 

Part load? come on. That's like taking a girl out to a steak dinner and taking her straight home, pre-ejaculating without going all the way.

 

I've read this thread three times, and I'm still not sure what we're talking about. Are we're trying to figure out if "load" is a factor in engine failures? If so, we need to determine two things: first, what "load" is and second, how "load" results in engine failures.

I think we've defined load in two different ways. One is the engine's power output, and the other is the internal stresses on the engine. They're not the same thing, and we should probably clarify which of the two we're discussing.

Once we've done that, I can start making wild guesses about the engine failures.