oil change duration for a 2016 (U.S.) Prius?

If you can afford to do oil changes every 5000 miles, that's the best route. 10,000 changes are for special conditions where most of your driving are highway miles and not short trips.

The dealer put 5000 to bring you in for tire rotations and inspections, another way to get you for some money that's not related to an oil change. But you should really try doing oil changes at 5000 miles

 

It really is your choice. If you REALLY WANT TO keep the car nice for a long time READ the maintenance schedule for your car, EVEN THE FOOT NOTES, and follow the folks who actually designed it advice. Which means you will put the oil (weight and brand) they recommend, and do it more often than some here tell you need to. Basically, every 6 months or 5000 miles. And if that is out side of your budget, learn to do it yourself, and if that is outside your budget … price out a head gasket replacement, plus many other parts and you will find it is inside your budget. One other thing you will find on Prius Chat is “the sky is falling” alot! Trust Toyota, they actually do know what they are doing.

 

You can download a pdf of the US Warranty and Maintenance Booklet from Toyota Tech Info (for one). It's "missing" a few items, brake and transaxle fluid changes specifically. Also, it's format is event-by-event, which makes it IMPOSSIBLE to see the patterns, frequencies, of the various maintenance items. I cobbled a spreadsheet (attached) that summarizes the booklet.

Also, I'd concur: 5000 miles (or 6 months, whichever comes first) is the way to go for oil changes. That's the regular interval for 3rd gen Prius in Canada, FWIW.

 

Yes, just transcribing what’s in the booklet; that’s Toyota USA’s stance.

it’s not uncommon to have miles or months, most manufacturers (if not all) spec both, and whichever comes first. If a car’s completely mothballed it kinda falls apart, but other’n that I like it. We’re ALWAYS months.

 

Oil additives degrade over time and with low mileage use (especially shorter trips) gasoline dilutes the oil (check out PQIA.org for info).
The actual booklets have footnotes that address when and what conditions require the 6 month/5000 mile OCI. You will read on this site all sorts of advice, backed up by a multitude opinions on why they think we should ignore Toyota recommendations.

 

Actual Maintenance Schedule

 

That is readily downloadable, from Toyota Tech Info site, and I believe a Toyota USA owners site.

 

If your using good quality full synthetic oil, following the OEM recommendations is fine and cost effective (10K miles or a year). Stricter oil standards and electronic sensors monitoring manufacturing processes has greatly improved motor oil quality. Some of the newer, top tier brands even stand behind their oil for 20K mile change intervals.
Gone are the days of questionable conventional motor oils. 35 years ago, I used Pennzoil in my late 70's Honda Civic. It went in as 10w30 and drained out about 10 or 5 weight oil at the 5K mile interval change. Switch to Castrol, and never had that issue again.
I inherited my dad's SR5 pickup. It had a low oil pressure issue at idle when hot. Did an oil change with full synthetic Castrol, problem went away - unfortunately I believe there's extensive internal wear due to the cheap oils used previously. But that Toyota 3.0L engine already has more than 250K miles on it. My brother told me that dad used the cheap barrel oil at jiffy lube, for his oil changes. You get what your pay for.
This speaks to Toyota's quality and engineering - allowing an engine to be abused by poor quality motor oil for decades and just keeps on running.

Hope this helps...

 

They do cut it to 6 months or 5k miles, for certain conditions. Forget what exactly, doing short trips mostly, extreme cold, that sort of thing.

it’s in the booklet.

 

Yep; 250 miles a year, in a 4 season state; I'd consider it severe operating conditions. At a minimum; I'd do an 18 month oil change - time related rather than mileage related intervals. Motor oil absorbs moisture from the air and gasoline from the combustion process, along with a long list of other contaminates. The engine needs to get up to operating temperature and stay there for at least 30 minutes.This will "burn-out" most of the contaminates in the oil. A very difficult task for a hybrid, considering the computer keeps shutting-off the ICE to conserve gasoline.

 

It is now your vehicle. You can gather opinions or facts to base your choices on. It appears from your responses and conclusions that you are choosing the “opinion” option. Good luck.
While you are at it, buy some pop cycle sticks to make feelers to measure your brakes and such with, there are good folks on here who will be glad to help you with that.

 

to me the issue is that the information is presented poorly. Give me a grid. Columns labeled by what needs to be done. Rows indicated by miles/time. Put x’s in the cells for what needs to be done.

instead, we get, 6 months/5,000 miles, do this; 12 months/10,000 miles, do this; etc. it makes it difficult to easily discern the differences

 

I cobbled this, virtually by necessity. It's faithful to the US Warranty and Maintenance Booklet schedule, not embelished with my personal pref's. Excel and pdf formats:

 

The spreadsheet is missing a few things it still needs before it can be called "faithful to the US Warranty and Maintenance Booklet schedule":

1. It needs the every-5,000-mile marks for "replace engine oil and oil filter", which apply any time you cannot answer no to all four of the "special operating conditions" shown there. Maybe that could be some different mark, like a lowercase x, with an explanation. Being kind of the topic of this thread, that shouldn't be left out.
2. There is another service that needs every-5,000-mile marks for two of the special operating conditions, and several more that need those under one of the special operating conditions.
3. The every 15,000 mile/18 month entries to "inspect" engine/inverter coolant all have footnotes referring to "Engine/Inverter Coolant" in the "Explanation of Maintenance Items" section at the end, and that text begins with "Drain the cooling system and refill". Yes, that does seem to conflict with what the footnote at the 100,000 mile entry says, but there it is.
   I have not been replacing my coolant that often, but I will dunk a test strip at least. It's been suggested on PriusChat and elsewhere that anticorrosive-depleted coolant can contribute to head gasket failures.