Oil Change Interval Concern

[priusrules]

I got 2009 Prius for about one month and put 2500 miles on it. When check to motor oil, notice it turn dark already. Oil change interval is 5000 miles. Should I be concern about the change of color? Mostly highway driven at 65 - 70 mph. I remembered my 2000 4runner when brand new the oil look like new for the first 3000 miles.

[Patrick Wong]

Originally Posted by priusrules

I got 2009 Prius for about one month and put 2500 miles on it. When check to motor oil, notice it turn dark already. Oil change interval is 5000 miles. Should I be concern about the change of color?

No. Different engine oil formulations will change color at various rates.

[cycledrum]

I don't have an answer for your question, but just wanted to remind you that at 5,000 miles, you are due for your first service on the car.

Looks like you'll hit 5k in another month.

[N3FOL]

For my peace of mind, I went ahead and changed my oil and oil filter at 1000 miles. After that, I just changed oil and filter every 4000 miles using dino oil.

If you are a DIY, you can go ahead and change oil and filter. It never hurts doing it a little early. To wait for 5000 miles on your 1st oil change, I think is way too long for me.

[xsmatt81]

just run the factory oil till your first service. It's normal for oil to turn a bit dark, that means it's doing it's job.

if you stick with dino, get castrol GTX, it's good regular oil. And good for 5k on this engine.

if going to synthetic Pennzoil platinum or Mobil 1 are both good choices, or any syn for that matter.

[M8s]

On our motorcycles, I do the oil changes. Usually the first is at 200 miles or so (motorcycle engines work pretty hard). I always examine the oil and tear apart the oil filter to see what's in there. Invariably, there are metal shavings from the factory machining process that the oil filter picks up. After that oil change, I just get clutch dust which is normal.

So, I had my Prius oil changed at 1k miles just to flush out any leftover machining debris. Next oil change will be at 5k and after that I'll just follow Toyota's recommended 5k oil change interval.

A few years back Cousumer Reports did a study of how different oil change intervals affect engine wear. After 60,000 miles they found no benefit - none - in changing oil more often than the manufacturer's recommended interval (every 7,500 in that case). I'd bet the farm that is true with the Pruis engine as well.

[Bob64]

If the oil is dark, then thats a GOOD thing. It means the detergents in the oil is doing its job. I'd be worried if the oil was crystal clear after 5000 miles.

[tochatihu]

If you ever intend to do any Prius oil change ahead of schedule, it should be the first one. Used oil analyses posted here indicate that only that one collects unusually large amount of iron and copper from the engine.

By unusually large I mean much more than subsequent oil changes, not that the amount is necessarily damaging. But there's a summary of the data; make your decisions accordingly.

[jayman]

With my Prius, I left the oil in until the recommended oil change. It was pretty dark. I made the mistake of not sampling the used oil until around 16,000km, so I have no idea how high the early break-in wear was

What I did uncover was that my dealership oil was complete crap, with high sodium levels. Using Mobil 1 for +3 years, everything has settled down and the oil analysis is fine even pushing 16,000 km intervals

With my FJ Cruiser, the oil was black before 3,000 km. Concerned, I sent off a sample and, essentially, the oil was used up: sky-high nitration, under 2 TBN, shear, etc

My Cruiser took longer to settle down, and a bit of experimentation with different oils. I have the best results - used oil analysis - running Mobil 1 0W-40 in that motor. I run Mobil 1 0W-20 year round in the Prius.

There is heated debate on this forum about different viscosity from the magic 5W-30 recommended on the fill cap. I'm not really interested in continuing that debate, you can search the forum for my posts on that topic

[Patrick Wong]

I recently started to use synthetic oil in my 2004 and my powertrain warranty has expired (odometer currently at 65K miles). I've decided to move to 7,500 mile change intervals to get more value out of the synthetic oil. My maintenance booklet came with a leaflet that says 7,500 mile/6 month service intervals are OK if the car is not driven in very cold weather, stop & go short distance travel only, etc.