5k Gen 3 Prime — Milky oil

Perhaps you're hearing the heat pump which can be quite loud and sounds like the engine is running?

 

No it's the engine, I always drive with the display in the HUD that shows where the power is coming from or going to. Plus I can feel when the engine kicks on. I wonder if it's because I park the car in the driveway so when it gets down to -8c (17F) for example, everything about the car is ambient temperature and not that little bit warmer from sitting in the garage.

 

Most of the water(maybe all) in the oil is a byproduct of combustion. Not much is going to get into the oil of a PHEV that isn't running the engine.

The warm up period is about getting to the point of efficient operation and getting the emission controls working. The oil likely hits the 100C mark, but it needs time at that point to boil off any excess water. Which is more than the case of the engine running long enough for just a warm up cycle, or the last few miles of a trip.

 

Yes, I was implying that the engine's min run time may be factoring in running long enough to be at operating temp for X amount of time to ensure its all boiled off. Though, very likely, the run time isn't factoring in how much longer it has to run to boil off condensation past a certain ambient temperature. If its cold enough the hot/cold cycle is going to be that much more extreme and prolonged which encourages condensation to occur, and it takes longer to come to temp and boil off too I'm sure. So when you factor all this in, its possible that short trips plus the insufficient for certain conditions min run time might both be contributing.

 

The PHEV is an add on upgrade to the hybrid. The hybrid warm up just gets the engine and emission controls to the point that they are working as intended. The engine will be coming back on sometime soon, and will be running enough to keep the oil warmed to get rid of the water.

For the plug in, extending the warm up time to get rid of the water is possible, but make it too long and it is wasting gas. Too short, and there is still water. Developing a system that tracks engine run times and temperatures to estimate water content of the oil, and then run the engine long enough to remove that water is possible. It just has a cost to do so and validate. For what is likely a small percentage of owners in which such a system is of benefit.

 

Ah I understand now what you're saying.

 

I thought I saw somewhere that the Gen5 was shipping with 0w8 factory fill. Perhaps that is the cause of the milky oil issue? I believe they are doing this to meet CAFE standards. If so, this makes it even more important to switch out for 16 or 20 as soon as possible after break in. Not sure where I saw that though.

 

I thought I had read the same thing previously, someone set me straight though on here. Its 0w16 in NA and Europe for sure.

 

Exactly THIS! Both my 2021 and 2024 Primes do this if the engine doesn't get warm enough..

 

Spoiler alert. Every ICE engines will do this if it doesn't get hot enough. It's just a lot worse with a hybrid. Personally i did 3k km OCI's during Winter and 8k during Summer with the 2021 Prime... sucks, i know.. lucky me, the 2024 has a lot more EV autonomy so in my case, i can avoid those low OCI's with the 2024.

 

I can do a to and back from work on EV range only even in colder temps. But if I have any other chores to do, I can't. So on days I expect to run out of range, I just run the engine on one of the longer legs of my drive. Usually on the drive into work as there's a little less traffic at that time for my route, and it lets the engine get a good 15 minutes of run time even with the EV mode kicking in for some sections of stop and go traffic. Means I never have to worry about running the engine for too short an interval too often in the cold. In the summer, it won't really be an issue.

 

I do the same except i put it in charge mode to ensure that the engine properly runs for at least 20 minutes non stop. It gets properly cold around here and i plan to keep the car at least 10 years. Cheap insurance!