Oil consumption on 06 Prii

Most of the time the oil lost is due to oil leak for old age engines. For Toyotas, the oil seal of the oil pump is the culprit.
Check the front of the engine near the main pulley for oil leaks.

 

"Straight 30" offers little if any higher viscosity at operating temperature and TERRIBLE cold-start/low-temperature lubricating performance. Mobil 1 makes a 0W-40 that would yield acceptable low temp. lubrication and the thicker high-temp. viscosity mentioned by a responder below.

 

Your problem seem to be worn valve seals.

- Alex

 

I mean valve stem seals. For some reason I can not Edit my message.
- Alex

 

I have an 04 Prius that burned oil (oil light came on one day). I put in 20% Lucas "thick oil" and no more...so far!

 

Ed,

I had it replaced already. Along with the PCV around 300K. Ema is just tired I think. I am considering a valve stem seal replacement just on a whim and to see if it makes any improvement. Might just keep giving her a quart of 10W40 every 1,500 miles or so until she hits 400K or something major gives me an issue.

Happy driving,
Chris

 

Awesome! Most people don't even know about that little filter.

 

Actually the first couple of times I tried Restore I would get the CEL for this little filter, don't remember the code off hand. We theorized that the "filler" that is in Restore that is suppose to coat the cylinder walls was blinding the little filter off. It only happened right after using Restore while the engine was cold. As soon as everything got warm you could clear the CEL, Scanguage, and it wouldn't come back.

This is what got us to thinking about the little filter for oil consumption as well and precipated its change. Just the story behind learning about this little filter.

Happy driving,
Chris

 

Cool. What was the code it threw please? Like to add it to my database.

 

It may have been P0011, which is the camshaft position sensor code but I am not 100% sure. I will dig through my records when I get a chance and see if I can find it.

Chris

 

Did you notice any drivability issue with that vvt filter clogged? Poor acceleration or pinging perhaps?

 

I hit 270k yesterday. Burning somewhat more than a quart every 2500 miles. Car goes to mechanic every for oil change plus every 5k. One time got a red warning light.

That and headlights are my only issues

 

2007 prius, I noticed about 80,000 miles I was using oil. I've always used nothing but valvoline 5w30 with fram oil filter. Around 100,000 miles I was using about a quart every 1,000 miles. I began using lucas oil stabilizer( one quart) around 200,000 miles, it helped cut back to about half a quart every thousand. I am at 320,000 miles now and nothing seems to help. I now use around 1.3 quarts every 1,000 miles with the lucas stabilizer. I can't believe toyota would use cheap pistons and rings, however, I do believe they would use cheaper materials when manufacturing the block to either save money or they don't want us hanging on to the cars for a half a million miles, or both. I think the usage of oil is coming from low compression issues. I hope this helps.

 

A little oil consumption at 320k miles really is not that big of a deal. Just 15-20 years ago, getting to 200k on an engine wasn't nearly as common as it is today, especially on a little undersquare 4 banger (undersquare = small bore, long stroke = higher piston speeds). I really doubt that Toyota used "cheap" materials for the piston rings. I'm sure they *did* use lightweight, strong materials, very short skirt pistons, and a low tension oil control ring.

We truly are spoiled these days, with how many miles we can drive these cars and barely turn a wrench.

Let's do some back of the napkin math here.... 320k miles / 35MPH average speed, that's about 9150 hours on the engine. Throw in an average engine speed of 2500 RPM, that's 150,000 revs per hour, That's 1,372,500,000 revolutions of the crankshaft, meaning each piston has moved up and down in its bore about 2,745,000,000 times , and the piston ring material and cylinder wall have worn less than a few ten-thousanths of an inch.... An impressive sounding feat, indeed!

 

Interesting calculation.
To put so many miles, the driver drove faster than the 35MPH you assumed. My assumption would be twice as fast. That cuts the engine hours in half to 4000-5000 hrs. That is incidentally the limit of gasoline engine life in cars. Of interest, marine gasoline engines are OK (before major overhaul) for only 1000-2000 hrs and diesels are good for 5000-10000 hrs.