Should the owner - me - of a Toyota (1998 - 2002)subject to recall due to oil failure have the oil flushed? Tom & Ray recommended this in the newspaper.
I don’t usually recommend “flushes,” except for the cooling system, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Have the engine flushed, and start using synthetic oil if you are not already. Synthetic oil is less likely to form the sludge that is responsible for the engine failures in some Toyota engines.
I have to agree with mc In this case a flush. It is a special case.
I say no. I don’t recommend flushes for anything except brakes. In your case, it would depend on the kind of driving you do and the oil change interval you have been using. If you’ve been changing your oil every 3-5k miles or use synthetic oil, you probably don’t need to worry. If you have concerns because of longer durations between the oil changes and have a v6 engine, I’d suggest that you do frequent back to back oil changes. Three or four oil changes 1000 to 1500 miles apart should do the trick for you.
I think part of the problem with older Toyotas sludging was the 12,000 miles oil change interval they recommended; this has been reduced to 8000 since that time. Imagine living in Minnesota, parking outside, and doing only short trip city driving, and changing oil at 12,000 miles. Small plugged oil galleries and passages often starve the bearing of oil when sludge forms. The Volvo/Renault V6, and small GM V6 also suffered from this problem, I believe. Agree that a flush followed by several oil changes with a short intervals (1000 miles) would be good. Changing oil on time, and minimzing cold starts (use block heater, if you have cold winters) would be my approach.