In 2002 Toyota admitted receiving 3,400 complaints about sludged engines and the automaker extended its vehicle warranty to eight years along with unlimited mileage to owners of 1997-2002 Toyota and Lexus vehicles equipped with 3.0-liter V-6 or 2.2-liter four-cylinder engines.

full story here

 

reeeepost mang.

But yea, its very true.

And the bad part is, if owners had just changed their oil at 3k intervals, this problem wouldn't exist. But they didn't. They went 10-20k miles, then blamed toyota when the engines went blamo. The only reason toyota decided to pay for it was because they claimed 7500 mile oil change intervals.

Lesson learned for Toyota

 

My bad on the REPOST.... I got a 2002 Solara and change the oil ever 7,500 and have for the past 123,429 miles. I have alway ran mobile one and all the driving is freeway....never had an issue that was related to the engine. I sure wish people would not blame others for the F-up's and just nut up...I got 237,xxx on my 85 runner and always take care of the engine, no way would I blame anyone but my self for blowing the thing up......

 

Synthetic can actually go for the 7500 mile intervals.

But most americans are about doing things as cheap and fast as possible. So they use the cheapest oil, and wait as long as they possibly can.

 

i live by amsoil, i have amsoil in everything from axel to trans to transfer to motor and i change the engine oil every 4,ooo m

 

X2. I don't know how many engines we replaced/rebuilt at work (Lexus) because of sludge. Sludge my a__, change your damn oil once in a while.

 

Your oil prolly aint hurt at 4ooo you should send some in for a UOA. It will tell you alot. Driving styles vary but 4000 miles on amsoil is nothing. I can help you find and do the test if your interested. Are you running Amsoil filters also?