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Mechanic With 20 Years’ Experience Working On Cars Learns About A Japanese Oil Change. Americans Are Doing It Wrong

"Cars that they've done this on have reached up to 600,000 miles."

Man With 20 Years’ Experience Working On Cars.jpg

Photo by: @tylerjohnwesley/Tiktok

Chad Swiatecki

By: Chad Swiatecki

Sep 6, at 4:00pm ET

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There aren’t many routine maintenance jobs simpler and less exciting than an oil change. It’s been the same routine for generations, with no need for innovation or improvement: drain the oil, swap the filter, refill it, move on.

So when a mechanic with roughly two decades of experience discovered a version that involves extra oil, two filters and two complete changes, he had questions. The viral TikTok from mechanic Tyler Wesley (@tylerjohnwesley) reveals the details behind the Japanese style of oil changes that is building in popularity online.

“The reason they still do it is because the cars that they've done this on have reached up to 600,000 miles,” Wesley said in the clip that’s been viewed more than 625,000 times. “And we're not talking some top-of-the-line engines here, we're talking about crappy four-cylinder engines.”

Improving The Standard Oil Change

For anyone skeptical about changing what seems like an elegant process that doesn’t need much improvement, Wesley understands that viewpoint. He hadn’t heard of the technique until social media dropped it into his feed.

“If you've never heard of a Japanese oil change, you're not alone,” he said. “I've never heard of it either, and I've been working on cars for like 20 years.”

The process he describes starts before the old oil ever leaves the engine. With the vehicle already hot, another quart of fresh oil goes into the crankcase. The car is then driven long enough for that new oil to circulate and, at least in theory, help loosen some of the buildup and contaminants suspended in the older oil.

That’s the starting point for an involved multi-step process. Wesley explains that the hot oil gets drained, a new filter goes on, and the engine gets a full load of fresh oil.

After another 15- to 20-minute drive, all of that new oil comes right back out. Then, a second new filter goes on, followed by yet another fresh fill.

“Now this seems kind of ridiculous to me,” Wesley admits.

As excessive as the routine sounds, parts of it are built around some fairly conventional ideas about motor oil. Changing oil while it is warm, for instance, is hardly an exotic Japanese practice.

Mechanics recommend briefly warming an engine before an oil change because warmer oil flows more freely than cold oil, allowing it to drain more readily. Experts caution against doing the job immediately after a long drive, however, when the oil can be hot enough to burn whoever pulls the drain plug.

There is also some basis for the idea that fresh oil can help clean an engine. Motor oils contain detergents and dispersants designed to prevent deposits from accumulating and keep contaminants suspended in the oil until it is drained.

Where things get murkier is the whole practice of sacrificing an entire fresh batch of oil after only 15 or 20 minutes of engine use.

Valvoline's guidance for dealing with sludge takes a considerably slower approach: drain the old oil, install a fresh filter and appropriate cleaning oil, then drive normally until the next recommended change interval. Garage veterans warn that aggressively loosening heavy sludge all at once can create problems if large deposits clog the oil pickup screen.

Origins Of The Japanese Oil Change

There is another wrinkle in the technique Wesley discovered that hangs on a kind of penchant for online mythmaking. It's easy to understand how these kinds of sensations take off, with online readers imagining some kind of automotive Mr. Miyagi practicing a range of secret car-care tactics handed down through generations that can help a beat-up Toyota run for a million miles or more.

The simple truth is that evidence that the described process is actually a standard Japanese maintenance practice is hard to come by.

Maintenance guidance for Toyotas and other Asian automakers lacks anything resembling the technique: owners are instructed to keep the oil within the proper range and replace the oil filter periodically. Toyota specifically warns against filling the dipstick above the upper mark, as excess oil can adversely affect the engine.

That makes the opening step of the viral procedure worth considering. If an engine is already properly filled, pouring another full quart into it before driving could temporarily push its oil level beyond the manufacturer's recommended capacity.

That’s not to say that a Japanese mechanic somewhere hasn't used the double-change technique. But it does leave a considerable gap between an oil-change ritual gaining traction online and one endorsed as standard practice by Japanese automakers.

Commenters, meanwhile, were less concerned with international maintenance philosophy than with cars that conduct their own perpetual oil changes.

“I do an American oil change,” one joked. “I don't change it. It leaks down and I top it off.”

Wesley takes the more scientific approach.

What do you think?

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“Should we try a Japanese oil change and see what the oil looks like?” he asked. “It'd be expensive, but hey, for science, right?”

Motor1 reached out to Wesley via direct message and comment on the clip. We'll update this if he responds.

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