Houston we have a Burner : a little upset !

You should ideally be using 5w-30 oil in your engine. Is it possible you were inadvertently running something much lighter in there? That might burn off much quicker.

If possible, may I suggest an oil change to 5w-30 and then monitor that very carefully.

It won't be the first time a dealer poured the wrong oil type into an engine just because it was cheaper and they had gallons of the stuff bought with a discount in storage. The customer would never know!

I've noted my engine oil levels strangely dropping rather quickly too, after a service (on one occasion for sure). Replenished it with 5w-30 fully synthetic and guess what? It seemed to arrest that problem - watched it for a while and noted the level seemed to stay put over a long period of usage.

Just a thought.


iPhone ?

 

There are many cars that burn that much oil even new. Some Porsches do and many Honda S2000's. The downside is you will have to pay to add oil. I wouldn't feel like it's going to break down on you or get much worse.

 

If it does happen it will NOT be because of excessive oil consumption.

P.S. If you did not check the oil at least once a week, you were NOT doing the maintenance "exactly as instructed".

The first thing you need to do is to track the oil usage over about 4K miles, checking it at least every 3 days. Your estimate of the usage might be way off.

There also could be a leak or two instead of the engine burning all of that.

 

all the best penny, please keep us posted!

 

Yeah, from page 428 of the wonderful, helpful Owner's Manual:



Other'n the above, situation normal, don't call us.

Just like tobacco manufacturers having to put cancer warnings and the like on their product:

Toyota should be obligated to show their oil consumption guidelines prominently in their sales brochures and website.

 

FWIW, I would try to track down the source of the consumption:
1. Check tailpipe for any accumulation of oily soot, which would imply the consumed oil is passing through the exhaust system, if no oily soot, try removing the under-cladding plastic beneath the engine-transmission unit and check for leaks. If yes, put cardboard underneath that area at night to help determine location and extent of leaks.
2. If no leaks, consider having a compression check and inspect the plugs that are removed for the checking procedure. If compression is low, the possible culprits are worn or stuck rings, or burned valves although that is very rare in modern engines. Stuck rings mighty be helped with a solvent additive that removes the carbon sludge that is holding the rings in their grooves, but truly worn rings would have to be replaced or coped with by using thicker base oils (5w30) or viscosity-enhancing additives. Check color and any accumulations of carbon on the porcelain insulator surrounding the center electrode. If dark and sooty, suspect oil consumption past the piston rings. If spark plug porcelain is a light tan and compression is normal but tailpipe shows oily deposits, consider oil leaking past the valve stem seals, particularly on the exhaust valves. You can try certain additives that claim to expand those seals, but more generally replacing the seals would be advisable.
Make sure you are always checking the dipstick on a level surface and after the car has sat a bit so all oil has drained into the sump. In the short term, adding oil regularly is a requirement. But Trying to reduce consumption is good in the long term as heavy oil consumption can slowly clog the EGR valve and its heat exchanger, which is moderately expensive, and ultimately overload the catalytic converter with carbon, which is quite expensive to replace.

 

What type and brand of oil are you using? Residing in Houston, you should be using a 10w30 synthetic oil. Its a little thicker and won't shear as much b/c of the lower amounts of VIIs.
Check your PCV valve, tube and breather tube and remove restrictions. A clog can cause pressure in the crankcase that pushes oil past the rings or seals.
Are you sure it's burning oil and not leaking it? An oil pan gasket would be an easy fix. Check for leaks.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Why aren't you pulling the dip stick out every 2 weeks? Your car is a major investment as you'll soon find out. Based on your "EXACTLY"
my guess is you have the oil changed at the dealer so in your mind you have no obligation to worry about it. The dealers on it!!!

Which is really bad as the dealer sucks in the oil change business.

They will never tell you you rolled in a quart or 2 low so please watch it as they never check it before they dump it. Or it ran so low on oil one time it turned the check engine light on. That means there was zero oil pressure. If that happened just once it will turn into a oil burning beast as lack of lubrication takes out the oil ring on the piston first. Not to mention they use the worst god awful vat oil. Refilled by filthy trucks. Injected into the motor with a pneumatic pump that's pretty inaccurate so they usually over fill the crap out of it every time.
Don't believe me check your oil level the next day after you get a dealer oil change. It will be a 1/4 inch over the full line. Thats not good either.

Always keep the oil right at the full line. The bottom end of the motor is splash lubricated and needs to be at the full line. Check your oil every Saturday morning before you start the car. Thats what I have been doing for over 40 years and haven't lost a motor or had a oil eating monster ever and thats alot of cars.

 

Recap and my thoughts....(FWIW)

1. Your car probably burns oil. and yes.....it's probably your fault.
BUT(!!!) there's no reason that you can't put another 100,000 miles ON THIS CAR, without dumping it into the used car market.
Panicking and trading it in on a Honda would be the worst of all possible next steps.
Honda's tend to be a little more expensive than Priuses, and......(Spoiler Alert!!!!)..................they burn oil too.
Excessive Oil Consumption in Honda Engines | HondaProblems.com

It's not a car problem.
It's a hood problem.
Owners have to open the hood about every thousand miles or so to see if the motor has enough oil.
This is all exacerbated by the fact that engines hold much less oil than they used to, and they go much longer between oil changes than they used to.
Even if you have oil that's WAAAAAAY better than the old timey dino-stuff that they used to put into cars when we were kids, you have to have enough of it in your sump to do all of the oily things that engines require.
If you ever see the flickering red light of death on your instrument panel, that means that your motor has been running significantly low on oil (as much as 2 quarts) for thousands of miles - and there's less than four quarts to begin with!!

That's as bad as the bad news gets.
The good news is that your engine might not be-----probably isn't as wrecked as you think it is.

2. We need to assess exactly how much oil your car is using before we switch the sweat pumps into high speed, and there's only one really effective to do that, which is to monitor and wait.
My bet is that you're using less than 1 quart every 5,000 miles, otherwise you would have seen the red lamp of shame before now and it would be illuminated more often.
The thing is? You have to wait 5,000 miles to find out for sure.
If you park in a garage, or on concrete make sure that you're not leaking oil instead of burning it.
If you've ever been in a collision or done something like run over an opossum-on-a-half-shell (armadillo) or a concrete parking lot bumper - that might have damaged your oil pan then you might have a drip-drip-drip, rather than a puff-puff-puff.
I don't expect this to be true, but you never know.
Also, it's possible that whomever changed your oil the last 7 times didn't do it correctly.
Yes.
I know.
I'll give you a moment to get over the shock, but it's possible that whoever changed your oil on one of the previous service visits screwed up and left you a quart low.
Honest mistakes HONESTLY happen, and we're not even getting into the realm of crappy technicians not bothering to change out the filter because it's just too hard to get to....putting too much oil in the car, using bulk oil instead of the expensive stuff, or just plain old not changing it.
I mean.....if you never look, how would you know?
Cars are like teenagers.
Something other than you usually gets them to start drinking - and if you catch it early (75,000 miles is early!!! and you DID catch it!!!!) then your car doesn't need to die an early death/

3. There's no such thing as retroactive oil changes.
You can't make things up to your car by buying it extra expensive gas or additives in the Marvel Mystery Oil aisle down at your local WalMart or car parts store.
Don't over think this.
Just keep the oil inside the hash marks on the stick.
Make sure that your car is parked on level ground when you check, and the best time to check is in the morning or evening after your car has been sitting for a while.
Monitor your use for the next 5,000 miles or so, and then you'll KNOW.

4. Paid-for card just drive better than bank-owned cars.
Cars almost never die from broken engines. They usually die from a combination of other broken stuff that adds up to more than the hull value of the car itself.
If I had your commute, I would keep driving the Prius until you're adding 1 quart every 600 miles and then I would assess, thus letting the car's efficiency work for you for a longer period of time to be cheaper to own.
After all......if your car is running efficiently, then it's running WELL, and I've seen cars burn 1q between (5K) oil changes for tens of thousands of miles.
Consider changing your OCI (oil change interval, in car-geek speak) to 5,000 miles and after about a week (to make sure the problem isn't WORSE than we think it is....) do not be tempted to yank out the dipstick every day in breathless anticipation of the problem going away.
It won't, and like a dieter jumping on the scales twice a day you'll probably not get accurate real-world data that way.

If you want to change from 0w20 to 5w30, then that's fine, but I'd see how much you're using first.

Keep in touch.
You've been here since 2009.
There's NO REASON that you cannot be posting here as the proud owner of a 2010 G3 in 2020.....


Good Luck!

 

Our daughter was by with her Pilot, on Saturday I think. She's had it five years plus, and last time around let me do the oil change. That was last June.

Anyway, got the bright idea to check her oil, and asked for the keys. She said sure, but let me know it'll be fine. She never checks it, and as near as I can tell, her statement was based on not having heard anything from the dealership service department.

Went out, maneuvered the car onto a more-or-less level spot, spent the mandatory 5 minutes looking for the Pilot hood release (I can NEVER remember), check the dispstick: there was just a little "bloop" of oil at the very tip. Well below the low mark.

I added a 1/2 liter of 5W20, left over from when I did her oil change, that got it about 1/3 of the way up, between the two marks. That's do till the next oil change, which is coming up soon, her Maintenance Minder is down to 15%, so it's a matter of weeks.

When I told her what I'd found/done, it was like I was talking Esperanto, lol. It was "so", "your point is"? Oh well.

 

mendel, mendel, mendel, where did we go wrong?

 

We did not go wrong, newer humanoids understand not some of the basic requirements.

 

If you recall: that girl o' mine drove the Pilot for MONTHS on a temp spare, on the front. Went down to Washington. Twice!

Intervention is needed...

 

...............maybe.
Or?
Maybe not.

Sometimes people have to bottom out on their own.

The human animal doesn't do long term risk very well.
That's why credit cards and smoking are so popular.

The problem with automobiles is that they are phenomenally reliable.
When we were kids, 100,000 miles was considered to be a good, long lifespan for a car that was only achievable after scrupulous maintenance and a dash of good luck.

Now?
Any car can do it, and with 10,000 mile OCI's.

My company does THE BARE MINIMUM maintenance that you can do on a car and still get about 250,000 miles.
This is why you should NEVER EVER buy a previous commercial or rental car.
Nobody checks the oil on a work car, except for old farts like me who do it out of habit.
Big Bell actually GETS 250,000 miles out of their cars because they reduced the OCI to 5,000 miles, which means that even if the driver NEVER checks the oil - and they almost never do - the car won't drive the same previous 5,000 miles with low oil that a car with a 10,000 mile OCI will.
This also gives the folks down at the beat-n-bang body shop 50-percent more chances to find leaks, creaks, cracks, and squeaks.

Kids with PPC's (Parent Provided Cars) don't have the same muscle memory as we do, because they didn't have to stroke the check every month while trying to decide whether or not to buy ramen noodles by the case or day by day.

 

I use Mobil-1.
For a Gen3, with consumption, I would probably start with Mobil-1 High Mileage 5W-20, which is an available grade:

Request Rejected <--- LINK to Mobil-1

The "high mileage" Mobil-1 formulation is specifically intended to reduce oil leaks/losses
I would also use a Mobil-1 oil filter which can be ordered from Amazon.com.

If it was still leaking, I would start adding some Mobil-1 High Mileage 5w-30.

 

Our 2010 burns oil too. I have posted about it in the past. It seems to be a problem primarily with the 2010s.

Frankly, it "is what it is"...but it has really turned me off to Toyota. This is a clear engineering problem and Toyota will not fess up to it. This is abundantly clear due to the ridiculous oil burn statement in the manual. I've said this in the past but I've never owned any other vehicle that clearly warns that an oil burn issue may occur. Nor have I ever owned a vehicle that has burned oil like this.

I've tried many things to try and alleviate the problem...but no luck yet. See other posts.

 

You still at a quart every 1500-2000 miles? Or has it gotten worse? Have you done anything else since the EPR flush? Just curious as I have seen marked improvement through switching to 5w-30, using 44K, doing an EPR flush, adding MOA to the last oil change and only going 5 mph or less over the posted speed limit. Consumption has been reduce to a quart every 8500-9000 miles or less.

Sorry to hear of your continued issues. I know @milkman44 had some success with the EPR and 44K.

 

I noticed oil usage started at 144K and before I drained the oil at 160K, I used the EPR and added MOA to the new oil. I added one quart and was one quart low when I changed again at 170K. I didn't add anything to the oil at this oil change and will see what happens. I can live with a quart every 5K miles.

 

Another thing is make sure you check the oil level after the vehicle has sat for an hour or so. My Volvo 960 just start it up run one minute shut it down and poof 1/2 quart down. Wait an hour or so the oil level is back to full. I check the Prius in the morning after the car has sat over night to make sure I get an accurate reading. You may even want to run a can of BG EPR before your next oil change to make sure the oil loss is not due to the oil rings being coked up. BG EPR® Engine Performance Restoration® | BG Products, Inc.

 

Well first of all my experience with nearly all vehicles is that is pretty hard to do.

Secondly, I've been involved in threads right here at Prius Chat, that bemoaned Oil Overfills. Overfills as being damaging. Hurting MPG, etc, etc.
Just google Oil Overfill Prius and you'll get several entries that guide you right back to Prius Chat.

My approach has always been to keep the oil in my vehicles 2/3rds to 3/4ths or more closer to filled. BUT NOT at or above the fill line.
And if I check and I'm not below 3/4ths to 2/3rds, I've never sweat it as a problem. I really don't care as long as I'm at some point above 3/4ths but below filled. I'm more concerned about potentially being overfilled.

I however would never publicly argue for someone NOT keeping their oil filled. Even if I feel there is a reason that there is a space between Empty and Filled and that some space below filled is perfectly acceptable. That's just my opinion.
And if you are burning oil or losing oil....then being diligent about monitoring and keeping an safe, operational level of oil in the vehicle becomes that much more important. I'm just not convinced that level HAS to be exactly at the fill line.

I would probably say, don't let your oil level drop below 2/3rds...try to keep 3/4ths or higher.

Maybe if I was changing the oil myself I could reach a point of repeated operation where I could ensure exact fill to exactly at the Full mark. But if a dealership or service department is doing it?
I was always much more concerned about overfilling than getting it back at some level below the exact full line.

Once again, this is just my opinion. But it is based on reading numerous threads about Oil Changes and Overfilling dangers.