OK, another well-worn and boring subject. Sorry to bring it up!

Looking at all the major oil manufacturers, for every grade and product there appears often to be a subset of 'professional' versions, with a particular suffix, specified to meet the requirements of various makes of vehicle.

I guess it comes down to minor tweaks in the formula just to get approval, or to better cope with diesel engines, but can it really make that much difference?

As an example, taking Valvoline SynPower 5W 30 (which may not be available in the US), there seems to be the 'regular' (a.k.a. 'consumer') version, plus many others including a 'Toyota / Honda' version at more than double the price! (So, what difference would it make to me?)

Somebody said that 'Toyota' oil was Shell Helix rebranded, which may be true as I can't find a Shell product that conforms to any 'Toyota spec'.

Why am I obsessing over this? Well, I have a theory that sticky valves, caused by sludge, were what killed my LS400. Even though I always used Castrol Magnatec and changed the oil every 5000 miles. I don't want to make any such mistake with this car!

Thanks for listening to my ramblings....

R

 

Was your theory ever confirmed

 

I only can inform you about the Toyota genuine engine oil 5W-30 sold in Japan. When it was the SAE SN, the supplier was ExxsonMobile. Now it's the SAE SP, and the supplier is ENEOS as you can find the detail below although it's mostly in Japanese.

TOYOTA GENUINE MOTOR OIL SN/CF 5W-30 GF-5 ExxsonMobile
https://toyota.jp/pages/contents/aft...107_201904.pdf

TOYOTA GENUINE MOTOR OIL SP 5W-30
https://toyota.jp/pages/contents/aft...08880-1370.pdf

 

In a word: No. (But there wasn't much else left TBH.)