My 2010 is at 55,000 miles with no oil consumption. I do my own oil changes every 6 months or 5,000 miles using Toyota 0W20. I am reading all these posts about checking the oil and it was 3 quarts low or it didn't show on the dipstick. What I find amazing is that your ICE is running at all with the oil level that low! I figure most Prius drivers will have to stop to buy gas around 22 times over 10,000 of driving. Do your ICE a big favor and lift the hood and check the oil while gassing up (this is not rocket science, just keep it between the 2 dots) to prevent engine damage that can cause excessive wear and oil consumption.
Nope, I have my own routine of checking the oil in my garage about once a month. The only point I am making is that evidently many Prius owners never check their oil level between 10,000 mile oil changes.
I'll fess up. I never check the oil between oil changes. I don't plan to either. I didn't check it on my previous 2006 Honda Civic (10k miles OCI on dino) or 1998 Toyota Corolla (7.5k miles OCI) either. There's no point to. None of the cars were using significant amounts of oil. The only car I checked oil between OCI was a 1992 Toyota Tercel that was burning a quart every fuel up. My 2012 is starting to show a little under a half a quart missing at 90k miles on 0w20. I still have no intention of checking it until 100k. The burn rate is just too low to waste my time.
I can offer a data point of one that it will be well worth your time to start checking your oil after 70,000 miles. My Prius didn't burn a drop of oil until around 77,300 miles when I noticed it was a quart low. Another 1000 or so miles later and I had to add another half quart. I still think it's a great car but I must admit I'm disappointed that it appears I'll now be adding a few quarts of oil between oil changes.
Thanks for that! Seems odd to go from zero consumption to a couple quarts unless something major happened.
Too many people confuse a 10,000 mile oil change interval with a 10,000 oil CHECK interval, but many of these same people also trade out cars every 2-3 years so they never learn from their mistake. Takeaway: 1. Buy used cars carefully. 2. Ignore OCI debates. 2010 G3 ....95,000 miles. 5,000 mile oil CHANGE interval, 1,000 mile oil check interval (every other tank.) No measurable oil use. YMMV
I set a reminder on my phone to check the oil in all our vehicles on every saturday. Its easy enough it takes less than 5 minutes to check the oil level in 3 vehicles.
Nothing happened and I take very good care of my cars (Prius III and Prius V). Have never missed an oil change, etc. Looking at other threads many others are seeing oil consumption as their Prius gets in higher mileage territory.
My Prius has 102k miles on it. I change my oil every 10k miles with 4 quarts of 0W-20 and I just recently checked it at 10k miles and the oil is between the full and low mark. Not sure what's going on with everyone who's engine is burning oil, but mine seems to be fine... And it's a 2012 model. Maybe the early 2010-2011 models were poorly made? Who knows...
What brand, model, and viscosity engine oil(s) has mostly been used in your Prius, and how far apart were its oil changes?