Any appreciable gain with 0w-20 oil?

Thanks to both uart and PriusGuy32 for the great answers. I'll go with the Mobil 1 0w-20 from Walmart. It is indeed a great deal, near the price of conventional oil without a coupon. I'll stick with the Toyota filter and 5,000 mile oil change interval. And I'll keep an eye out for oil consumption.

Hi Burrito! is a play on the Japanese loan word for "hybrid", which is "haiburiddo". Plus, it sounds like it'd make a great name for a Mexican fast food restaurant in Japan. And who doesn't like burritos?

 

That would be a perfect name for a restaurant that served Mexican/Japanese fusion (hybrid) cuisine.

Sashimi Tacos
Squid Burritos
Rice Tortillas
Salsa Wasabi

 

cool play on words there...

if i may chime in.. i think the best way to increase mpg without changing oil grades between oil changes? driving habit.

I've been using 5W-30 on my gen2 since i purchased it and have always been contemplating on using 0W-20
whenever it's due for service but ended up still using the more affordable 5w-30 every time. For some reason, the search for that extra mpg still lies on our foot and how it treats the gas pedal. Reading up on hypermiling techniques and applying what works for your driving environment/situation and honing that skill over time will reap more mpg rewards than the gains from changing to a more expensive oil grade. It's a fun thing to do anyway! Otherwise, if they cost about the same or even cheaper, then yeah, use the 0W-20. A lot of people here use it with no adverse effect.

The only time I might try 0W-20 is probably when I've reached my hypermiling limit where I could easily
tell the difference between a really good oil and a really really good oil.

just my .01 mpgs

 

I beg to differ on the air filter restrictions. It can and will make a difference in fuel economy due to the fact that, a dirty or more restrictive air filter restricts the ability for your Naturally Aspirated ICE to get air to mix with the fuel that is injected. This doesnt mean that your engine is not going to get the air, but on the same token that a supercharger acts as a parasitic power drain to PUSH more air in, a clogged or restrictive air filter forces your engine to waste more energy PULLING the air that it needs in. Whether the difference is 10% as the VW service place suggests is relative to how dirty or restrictive said filter is, and what kind of engine are we talking about...

 

A closed loop fuel injection system, such as the Prius has adjusts the fuel mixture to compensate for air filter restriction, so no difference in AF ratio. For a car that had a carburetor or an open loop fuel injections system, you would be correct.

Until you are at full throttle, whether the throttle plate or air filter is causing the restriction has little to no effect on pumping losses. In any case, the end result would be a slight loss of power with little to no loss of fuel economy. The same result as not opening the throttle all the way.

If you carry things to an extreme and run an air filter until it is causing such a serious restriction that the closed loop FI system can't keep the mixture right, then you would get some loss of economy but you would have lost a noticeable amount of power by then.

 

I'll buy that for a dollar. I still feel that, even with closed loop, there may be some residual loss during the time that the system is compensating, and I'm sure that between the two of us, we could argue it down to the molecular level, but the gist of it is that any losses would be negligible I'm sure.

 

What's your experience with the change over so far? I'm considering switching to the 0w/20 myself when I need to do my first oil change.

 

Other than possibly increased engine wear, nothing.


iPhone ?

 

someone please elaborate, I assume, 5w30 is the recomended fill, plain, mineral, every 5000 miles, ow20 say full syntetic is a thinner oil, I noticed most newer cars run it, aparently for efficiency gains, myself I am due for a change, and I was really contemplating an extended oilchange, like 15k, with filter in the middle, I've always run 5w30 / 3k in my other vehicles, on other forums I noticed a hype about mobil 1 15k, some used it in old style pushrod domestic engines where tolerances are larger than most modern engines.
my reasoning for this is the same that I bought the prius for, I know there is a lot of debate over the cost of the prius justifyng the fuelconsumption, but as far as I am concerned I aim to reduce my contribution to oil "industry" as close to zero as posible particulary the imported kind, and with a bit of smart shopping the premium was not that bad.
that beeing said the thought of all these gallons beeing hauled arround, recycled and so forth bothers me these days, so 15k oilchanges, compared to the 3k I always advocated in the past mean 5 x less footprint on my part
I don't see why this would be unatainable, as the nature of the prius, not iddleing for example, implies less wear than a regular car, so in turn say for the sake of conversation, it will hold up to 15k better than my 2.2 pushrod chevy, also one thing I have in the works is converting to propane as it is mostly if not all domestic and plenty of if particulary since its unheard of arround here, for those of you who do not get my point, read up on it, its a better fuel, from many aspects cost/ emisions, thou in michigan not a concern, just personal, better on the motor, and oil for that matter,
one concern I have, I read throu some posts, I am unclear as to why but supposedly its in the cars nature to dump some fuel in the oil, with propane this should be avoided as well.

any thoughts please pitch in I'm close to 45k its time for a change and since the weather has been getting nice I am compeled to do it, since this would be the first one since I got the car I could use some feed back and please consider the reasoning behind my thought process, it is more important to me than the $2 id save buying cheap oil

 

What you say sounds like a good experiment to try. I always advocate following the manual in order to maintain your warranty. The power train is warrantied for 5 years or 60k miles so I would wait until that point before experimenting with extended oil changes. If I had a Gen 2 Prius, I'd probably go with 0w20 synthetic and 10k OCI. It's basically the same engine as in the Prius C, so it should have no problem with that. If you really want 15k then you could do a UOA at 10k miles and see what you have left.

 

I am realy not too concerned with the waranty, I bought mine used/cash its allready 6 years old and I'm no stranger to wrenches, as for a uoa, I was planning on that too, however I have no Ideea as to where to send it I was never too concerned with it at 3k, any pointers?

 

I've never done a UOA but from the forums I've read, seems like Blackstone is the goto company.
Edmunds Insideline - 2010 GMC Terrain: Oil Sample - Bob Is The Oil Guy

 

You really won't be able to compare until you've wrapped around to the temperatures that you had before the oil change.

Per my fuelly listing, I was getting 12% better mileage in September than I did last month and I chalk that all up to temperature (the driving profiles are about the same). I'd say by early to mid-May you'll have a better idea of what difference there's been with the oil.

 

I'm with you on eliminating as much oil and gasoline use as is practical. My first oil change was to Mobil 1 0w20. I think the car was pretty well cared for before I got it with 96k miles on it. The 0w20 has resulted in a quart of use in about 7k with some mild lifter type tapping. That's not terrible but I'm guessing 0w30 will result in less oil consumption and noise. Of course, this is in the mid-atlantic states moderate weather. My mpg has been good at 50-55 mpg mostly, depending on how it's driven. Wife gets 45 around town and the son gets 60+ on country roads going mostly around 45 mph. Haven't decided if I will go 7,500 or 10,000 miles yet. With 7,000 it's getting a little dirty looking. I wouldn't go 15,000. I'm looking for longevity. I really do need to change the transaxle fluid though. It's probably never been done.

 

For cold weather you can go 0w30 instead of 5w30, but I would not recommend going below 30 on the high end for two reasons. The engine presumably was not designed with the higher tolerances of the 1.8l engine in GEN IIIs and your engine has over 53k miles on conventional oil, so it is not as tight as new. The question whether the "new and improved oils" can go 15k between changes is still in debate, but even with a filter change mid way, remember not all contamination is particulate. There is gas blow by, fuel, water from humidity, ect....not to mention particles smaller than the filter can capture. My current opinion says no with your car in question. In fact I am a strongly feel that 5k oil/filter changes in your situation would be better. Your desire to not waste oil is admirable but rest assure it is recycled, resold and reused one way or another. Proper oil maintenance is the single most important and cheapest thing you can do for the health of you engine.

 

Toyota sanctions the use of 0W20 in second gen, assuming this is legit:

 

Good info Mendel. However based on the previous 53k mile use of conventional oil and being a used car, I think 0w30 is the thinnest I would recommend. PriusGuy32 you were correct to do a flush with synthetic on this engine. About 200 miles max usually does the job of clean up before converting. Then again this is just my opinion, and what do I know?

 

how about brands, is the jury still out? I know m1 had a large campaign a few years back especialy on extended range fully syntetic, I never used it, for the longest time I used the valvoline syntetic blend, high mileage, long before the 70k, figured it wont hurt (not on the prius, just now due for my first), lately I've been getting the 50% recycled, can you see a trend here, also as for reliability, I plan on keeping this car till the whells fall off, put new ones on and go some more, I'm not into selling, I still got all my old cars, they're worth to me more than the resale