I can understand your rationale Joe, but I’ll bet they say not to change the engine oil for 10,000 miles too. Now if you were buying a used car, would you want one with 5000 mile oil changes and 30,000 mile trans changes or no trans service and 10,000 mile changes? They don’t want you to change plugs either for 100,000 miles. I remember back in 1961, GM came out with their new Acrylic finishes and said they NEVER needed waxing. So you could wax or not wax but after a few years you could really see the difference.
Bing:
Those are fair comments, especially for someone looking to buy a used vehicle.
However, if you have a new car that you only plan to keep for 100K-150K miles, how big of a gamble is it to follow the manufacturer’s maintenance schedule? I view it as a small gamble.
Much of the way I rationalize it is by looking at the many millions of car owners who have followed the vehicle’s maintenance schedule without problems. Similarly I then look at Europe where they transitioned to the 10K oil change interval a decade before we in the USA did.
Will there always be cases where a vehicle should have have had more strict maintenance? Definitely.
No one here knows what percentage those cases represent. I believe it’s sufficiently low enough to still follow the manufacture’s maintenance schedule.
I respect that others view it differently.
The OP may be one of the few people that Toyotas 10000 mile oil change is ok for.