Unless it reads really differently in Canada I question this highly. The 3.5l engine in the RAV4 has always been specific on 5W30 oil changed every six months or 5000 miles (8047 km) but that's USA. There is a Canadian oil chart from Toyota that says it is back spec'd to 5W20 or 0W20 so perhaps they increased the mileage/time interval as well? I'd ask my friend to show it to me in print in his owner's manual.

If yours is completely out of warranty then 7500 miles or once a year should be just fine with a good synthetic. As a matter of fact most standard oils would easily last that long. I have the Toy extended warranty on mine and the guidelines for oil change interval are still 6 months/5k miles.

 

Your weak point with any oil change is the filter, not the oil itself. I just bought a bottle of castrol synthetic from Walmart for $22 and a filter will cost me another $5. You can absolutely run 7k or more on modern engines. But for less than $30, I consider it cheap insurance

 

Hey RTexasF,

I don't have my friends manual. He may be wrong.

But, I did find this online.

http://mediapv4.toyota.ca.s3.amazonaws.com/media/pdf/12manual_e.pdf

Look at page 25. I says oil change every 16,000 KM (10,000 miles) unless I am missing something.

 

Do whatever you like and you use own best judgement. Everyone are going to have different opinions on oil.

 

There are a few significant differences between USA and Canadian, also year to year, even with same engine.

Toyota changed its tune and stretched out the maintenance intervals, maybe starting with that 2012 Canadian manual you posted. In 2009, the spec for oil change in the 2.5l 4-cyl is 6 months/5K miles. Now it is 12months/10K essentially same engine in the 2013+ RAVs.

This tells me once warranty is done, I can go to the extended service if I choose to go synth.

Another big difference, the Canadian service schedule is more aggressive on frequency of other fluids, at least for my 2009. For example, they specify changing transaxle/front diff fluid at 6 years/60K miles for all models. Of course, you have to convert the km to miles, see pages 23-24:
http://mediapv4.toyota.ca.s3.amazonaws.com/media/pdf/09manual_e.pdf

Maybe more frequent because Canadian weather is more harsh in general than USA? Anyway, as AVS noted, you can look at all these Maintenance Schedules--and other than maintaining the warranty, cherry pick the ones that are right for you. I've pretty much adopted the Canadian 2009 schedule on all my fluids, as weather in Idaho probably as harsh as Canada, eh! And will stretch the interval for oil change after warranty expires as well, cause RTexasF said it was okay!

 

Now that I am out of warranty I change my oil every 10K, but I still change the filter at 5K. I use Mobil One.

 

Bigswede,

I have heard of people doing what you do.

How much oil do you loose if you just change the oil filter? I haven't done an oil change on the RAV4 yet but on my old car the oil would squirt all over the place and make a big mess. So, I would just change the oil when I changed the filter. I would drain the oil first & then change the oil filter.

 

The amount of oil that drains with the filter seems the same as when the pan has been drained. There must be a check valve in there somewhere that prevents the entire contents from draining.