Not sure I understand why the dealer won't change your oil before 10k miles. I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I drive 20k-22k miles per year. I switched my OCi (and tire rotation) to 7500 miles.

In your case, I would stay with 0W-20 and do a once a year oil change and tire rotation. The "grinding" at startup is normal and will not change with 5W-20 oil.

 

The dealer told me that the OCI was 10k and they will not do it before. I was shocked about it and just walked away


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If you have another dealer nearby, I would contact them.
Do you have some kind of pre-paid maintenance plan?

 

I change my oil every 6-7 months, as I drive 5 miles to and from work, The dealer is happy to take my money, and its usually ok to go 6 or 7 months to go between intervals thats what it take for me to hit 6k miles.

 

Glad to know that the 1 second grind is normal. I thought the oil could be to thin at startup. IT is very annoying

 

There should be no "grinding" noises at engine start up. Tapping - possibly, if oil is old and it takes time to build up oil pressure. But not grinding. The only grinding noise that goes away as engine warms up I encountered so far is water pump going south. It will slowly get worse until it needs to be replaced, hopefully, within warranty period.
IF it's water pump. Not idler bearing. But those usually grind for much longer time.
Find a friend with "mechanics ear" and let him scope that noise for you. Water pump is under power train 60K warranty.

 

maybe I am explaining it wrong or using the wrong terms for the noise. Will try to explain it better

When the car is started first thing in the morning after sitting for the night, it will sound like a grind/rattle for about 1 a second or two and then it goes back to normal.
when you start the car after driving for a mile or two, (picture grocery run) and let it sit for maybe an hour, it has no noise. Starts up beautifully.

It sounds like it is getting no oil to the top for a second or two and then it is fine, if it sits for more then 8 hours

That is why I was asking if a thicker oil would coat the parts better and prevent this.......just want to make sure this car lasts at least 150K - 200K

 

Correct. That is exactly what I was suspiscious of - low oil pressure in upper end. though have in mind, those cars do not have oil lifters, they have tappets instead. So tappets do not have any oil pressure in them.
So here's another possibility: timing chain. Tensioner is oil pressure4 driven and it takes some time to build up tension on timing chain. As the result, chain slaps on cams pulleys making loud noise that slowly goes away as tensioner kicks in.
I am routinely watching a guy on Youtube who tears apart engines and points out at all design flaws. He hates modern timing chains, especially on Nissans. Flawed tensioner design.
Either way, I do understand your idea of thicker oil. MOF, I had it done myself many times on oil takers and rattlers. Thicker oil=higher oil pressure. Or, you can add Lucas Oil Stabilizer, which thickens oil, and see what happens.
I discontinued 0W20 on Camry Hybrid right away. MOF, she came with 5W20, and I tried 0W20 as it was supposed to improve mpg. Engine became so noisy that after 2 days I drained that oil and went back to 5W20.
This is great example of why oil changes should be DIY job.
Here's my suggestion. Pour can of Seafom oil treatment into crankcase. Perfectly safe, I just poured one into my Highlander engine yesterday. Drive for about 100 miles. Change oil to 5W20. That should fix your cold engine noise. We had to do it twice in a row on son's Infinity V6, as it sounded like as if it will explode at cold start ups. Only lately I realized that that was timing chain slack resulting in bad timing chain slap and valve /cam work. Thank you, YouTube guy.

 

i am going to try the 5w20 and see if that does something for it. What you are saying makes a lot of sense to me considering the design of the engine. I want to learn as much about this engine as possible and understand the pitfalls or issues it may have with this current maintenance schedule

 

perhaps make a video of this 'start up sound' and post it on the forum...?

FYI - I change mah oil on mah 1995 Camry with REGULAR oil every 10,000 miles using OEM toyota filters... nearing 300,000 miles... People forget Jap manufacturers were spec'ing 7,500K and 10,000k oil change intervals using REGULAR oil way back in the 1980's. Mah old 1995 Camry is proof that such intervals were correct...

Your car is newer, uses synth, and has a 10k change interval... that's beyond conservative in my book... but if Toyota says 10k or 1 year, then just do what it says and you'll be good to go... short trips are less of an issue these days with synth oil and cooling systems that heat up waaay faster than cars from the 80's/90's... your car prolly gets to operating temp in 1 minute at idle, where mah 1995 camry takes 5-7 minutes at idle...

 

perhaps make a video of this 'start up sound' and post it on the forum...?

FYI - I change mah oil on mah 1995 Camry with REGULAR oil every 10,000 miles using OEM toyota filters... nearing 300,000 miles... People forget Jap manufacturers were spec'ing 7,500K and 10,000k oil change intervals using REGULAR oil way back in the 1980's. Mah old 1995 Camry is proof that such intervals were correct...

Your car is newer, uses synth, and has a 10k change interval... that's beyond conservative in my book... but if Toyota says 10k or 1 year, then just do what it says and you'll be good to go... short trips are less of an issue these days with synth oil and cooling systems that heat up waaay faster than cars from the 80's/90's... your car prolly gets to operating temp in 1 minute at idle, where mah 1995 camry takes 5-7 minutes at idle...

cant post a video unfortunately. It does not allow it to attach

 

Well, y'all should watch the YouTube guy I mentioned to see all the "wisdom" of Japanese late engines. They are likely intentionally dumbed down. Who wants reliable running forever cars, right? If you need to sell more of them? Things he points out are either designed by morons (he calls them "engines designed by those on drugs") or they are intentionally made to reduce their resource. Part of that being switching to timing chains everyone believes are lifetime while they end with stretch and slack in rather short period time.

But anyhow. OP, this is what I do. I pour Seafom in and drive on it. It cleans all the passages, dissolves crud and build ups, cleans pistons rings and pistons. It does, it's a fact.
I normally drive on it for about 500 miles, what is not realistic with your commute. So a 100 will do.
Then I buy 2 sets of oil. One cheapest possible, Supertech usually, in proper weight. And one quality conventional. I like Quaker State, I have reasons.
Then I drain used oil, pour Supertech in and run engine for about 15 minutes, on and off holding at 2500 rpm.
Then I drain that - comes out black - and change filter and fill with good oil. I do not save on filters. best available.
In this manner, I have clean and flushed engine. Also, it normally takes care of any noises of the nature we discussed.
But I DIY as much as I possibly can - which is basically everything besides electrical, I am dumb that way.

 

If you are worried about engine wear then do the obvious to nearly eliminate wear: have the engine oil changed every 6 months or 3,000 miles (6,000 for the oil filter) and use a thicker oil - like 5W-30 (but use 0W-20 in winter if you live in a Minnesota like climate). Change the engine air filter at 15,000. That's what I do and I've gotten up to 485,000 miles on my Toyota engines and they still had like-new cylinder compression with no visible wear on wear prone parts like the camshaft lobes.

The only reason the 2014 Camry owners manual says to use 0W-20 is for CAFE (i.e. political) reasons; i.e. the car's EPA fuel economy rating was obtained with a test car running 0W-20.

 

the grinding noise might be the solenoid not disengaging as fast as it should, you should definitely find another dealership because whoever is telling you that is wrong

 

The startup noise is the VVT cam gear. There is a TSB for it out there to replace the gear and replace the timing chain. They changed ours out 3x and it still kept doing it, and most other 2.5L Toyotas do it as well - just something to get used to.

Some are longer duration, some aren't. This is what our 2012 sounded like on every cold start.

 

ok to all that responded to my post, I want to thank you for doing so. This forum is great!

So after further research, it seems that it is indeed low oil pressure at startup for the VVT-i gearing along with timing chain rattle. This seems to be due to the fact that this thin oil is draining out of the head and into the oil pan. So while it may give you better cranking at -50c (which we never see here in new york) and may flow better, it may not be good in the long run.

This 0W20 oil is pushed by toyota because of CAFE reasons. Toyota is REQUIRED to push it on us because the fuel economy numbers may go down thus involving them in a law suit. The car was tested for fuel economy on 0W20, which allows them to not have to buy credits from automakers.

Someone else on this forum brought up how different oil recommendations for different countries. That seems to be the case. The engine itself is machined to the same specs as it is here. The difference is the emissions standards as well as the type of gasoline they are using. That is why you see different HP ratings and different oil recommendations.

The other reason is the 10k OCI. Toyota knows that this weight of oil is only made in synthetic, thus the 10k OCI is acceptable. 5W20/5W30 can be found in dyno and synthetic flavors so to make it easier they required the ow20. You can either do 5k for the dyno or 10k for the synthetic. Mobil 1 AFE has been tested and discussed on a bunch of forums which says it is adequate for the 10K OCI

I choose to change the oil two days ago to mobil 1 5w30 with a wix filter. The car is much quieter on startup and you can hardly hear it running when at idle. It did not loose any power that i can notice. I dont get that dreaded start up noise which is a plus.. I am also going to change it every 5k. I can afford 44 dollars in oil per year. I will DIY it from now on since I dont want to deal with dealers at this point.

just figured this quick update.

 

Oil change, Camry 2014

ok to all that responded to my post, I want to thank you for doing so. This forum is great!
...
I choose to change the oil two days ago to mobil 1 5w30 with a wix filter. The car is much quieter on startup and you can hardly hear it running when at idle. It did not loose any power that i can notice. I dont get that dreaded start up noise which is a plus.. I am also going to change it every 5k. I can afford 44 dollars in oil per year. I will DIY it from now on since I dont want to deal with dealers at this point.


This sounds like a good plan.

Just changed the oil in my new-to-me 2014 Camry V6 with 94000 km (Australia). It was really black, although allegedly had been changed at 90000 km.

Something for oil changers to note: when I followed the procedure, I only got out about a litre of oil. You have to turn the engine to get more out - I did it about 10 times, and ended up with 5L, which was close enough for me. Then undid and replaced the filter. I wonder if there is a problem with the recommended oil drainage method?

 

I've changed mine at 5k from the get go. Dealership tried to pull the same stunt with me and refused to change it at 5k so I went to the parts and got a filter and the filter wrench from them before I left. Wrench paid for itself the first oil change. May try the 5w20 next time. I don't get the startup noise. But I attribute that to the more frequent changes. I have a purolator in my car this time but only filter my car just did not like was a fram. I did get startup noise with it.

Edit: about to turn 90k on my 2014.5. Plan to keep it until it will no longer go and Toyota will no longer honor the lifetime power train warranty.

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I plan to keep it for a while too and pass it down to my son. that is why I am soo anal about engine noise. So far so good. The 5w20 is actually only mildly thicker then the 0w20. If you look at the ratings on moble site the VI is almost the same with the 5w20 vs 5w30. I chose the 5w30 because of all the manufacturers signing off on it, plus it is dextros compliant. Basically means it is a really good oil.

 

Yeah I have talked with a few Toyota mechanics and they say it's an non issue as well it's supposed to be designed to not leak down from the vvt gear but it does. So far haven't heard of any damage from the rattle so far and they see 2.5 engines with 200-300k fairly often. He told me they are mostly fleet vehicles that aren't near as well maintained as mine and still going strong.


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Ones I've talked to say as long as the oil is changed frequently and the water pump and coolant is changed every 120k they have seen very little problems with the 2.5l Camry engines.


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That is the key... changing the oil frequently and changing the coolant. We are led to believe that the manufacturer is in our favor when they recommend fluids and intervals. They are not. They are in the corner of selling new product. They have a life span of the car (150k or so) before they feel it is time to purchase a new one. That is why if you look at the owners manuals they do not have specifications for maintaince beyond 125k or so.

This is also why they say the transmission fluid is a "lifetime" fluid but that is a different post totally.

 

Substantial drop in mileage from 5W20 synthetic? I doubt it.




The drop in mileage (compared to EPA tests) is the gas used, moreso than oil. Although a lot of pumps are marked that there is "up to 10%" ethanol in there, most do not mark it!!


When my local Shell station added a "non-ethanol 90" pump, I did a WTF. 90 octane is way more than we need, but ethanol is a mileage dropper. After "diluting" my tank back to purer gas, my mileage is up. The cost is the killer.


The bastards don't adjust down with all of the other. Flat rate.


What I am getting at is this "Test on one gas that you probably can't get," is BS--plain and simple.


Add to that, changing your computer to shift differently as a fix for shudder has changed mileage. And, they did it twice.
It smacks of similarity to the VW scam.

 

> I'm watching a guy on Youtube who tears apart engines and points out at all design flaws

I'd love it if you could post a link to this guy's videos. Thanks!

 

mileage

I had a huge drop in my MPG, 28/29 city to 25 city, I had a engine light come on for a bad o2s bank 2, long story short it was the air fuel sensor that had gone bad, killing my mpg, and never had a engine light on to tell me it was bad, it was bad but just compensated the fuel trim in conjunction with the o2s bank 2 and computer, just saying it might be something other than oil, oil would not cause a noticeable drop in mpg.

 

Oh, he's great. You speak Russian?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9749btHtEwluusvu6xEXw

 

Oh, he's great. You speak Russian?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp9749btHtEwluusvu6xEXw

No, I don't dammit! I have a friend who speaks fluent Russian, but I'm not going to ask him to translate all these videos.

 

Example:

 

You have no idea what you missing. Guy is bluntly honest and, as he's across the world, he does not give rats tail about spiffs and being on corporation good side. He HATES chained engines. He had entire hour spiel on them, showing why that is designed obsolesce. Two dominant designs, how they stretch, how ill tensioners are designed, what happens when the chain stretches.
His beloved engines are 80s Japan. And I grant him that.

 

> You have no idea what you missing.

I have a pretty good idea what I'm misssing. I just wish his videos were either in English or had English subtitles. The only thing I can say in Russian is Dobre utra "Good morning". I can't even begin to spell it in Crylic.

 

I would change dealers. What difference does it make to them how often you change oil. If you pay them to do it they should change oil every week if you want it - it is your car and you are the customer and they should listen to you.

They should also know no oil I mean no oil whether it is full synthetic or not should not go past one year. You always change oil at one year no matter how little mileage you put on the car.

 

That short trip stuff makes my oil dirty quicker.
Although I change every year, mileage or not, I replace the filter and top off every six months.

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