2011 prius burning oil at 82k miles at 1 qt per 3700 miles

Do 5k miles oil change and keep the consumption at minimum amount. You can use higher quality oil 0W-20 Longlife 508/509, dexos 2 gen 3, or better. At least use ILSAC 6A oil instead of older API SN Toyota oil or even worse non full synthetic oil.
At 0.5 quart per 5k miles, it may be just normal wear instead of clogged piston rings or return hole.

 

What has Toyota done about it? Most vehicles don't burn that much oil.

 

Toyota revise the engine on Fall 2014 with new piston and rings design, also new head gasket without black coating, post that period, the oil consumption is no more. Unless the owner neglect the oil change.

 

What's the story on the head gasket redesign?

 

you can see from that video. Ahmed replaced the short block completely because the cylinder wall is already bad and no way to re-hone 2ZR-FXE engine. If it is not too bad, replacing just the piston and piston rings+ revised head gasket will work too.

The failure point on the head gasket in Prius is almost always the erroded black-coating.

 

I’ve had 5w-30 for couple months now and oil consumption has reduced clearly. Car is nowadays enjoying ”warm” garage where temperature never go below +12degrees celsius so no need to worry cold start stress. I’ll provide numbers once i have something to share. It appears consumption is down 50% or so. Admit that driving is low speed city driving

 

The oil consumption does not change with 5w-30 or 5w-40 if it is from caked piston rings. Driving slowly reduce the consumption significantly. It can be 1q/1000 miles at 70mph and drops to 1q/3000 miles in city driving.
If it is not too bad, engine flush product from BG44K can help or stop completely.