3% Fuel in 1st Oil Change at 1300 miles 2024 XLE

Luckily my generation twos and even the threes the engine runs way more than I guess what you're talking about here so our oil tends to come out like the CX-5 hell leaving my volt oil looks like your CX-5 the light looking brown business I don't ever see that I remember some of that in the '80s

 

Yeah, well take notice that what you saw was a worst case scenario. The engine never properly heated it's oil during our frigid canadian winter and shit ensued. And it wasn't even that much rigorous of a winter this year.. With that being said, next winter, i'm going to make the car run in charge mode once a week to make sure that some heat goes in that oil and vaporise the humidity/gas that may get there.

 

The previous generation had coolant heating from exhaust heat during warm up. What does the latest generation have? It’s pretty hard to see without an OBD scanner what the coolant temp is. Of course coolant temp isn’t oil temp.

 

When was the last time you got good fuel economy out of a cold engine?

In a Prius, the calculated MPG on the dash can stand in for a lot of other instruments, just because lots of the negative things that you'd see on those instruments would also impact your fuel economy.

It's not detailed or deterministic, but it is useful.

 

Exactly this! Gen 2 had the coolant thermos that was pretty effective. Gen 4 had the Exhaust Heat Recovery System (that i call heat trap). Very effective too but Toyota changed tons and tons of these on warranty. My guess is, it's for that reason that the Gen 5 don't have it. Sucks, it was really effective at putting some heat in that cold engine.

 

Toyota usually doesn’t go backwards. Gen 2 had a coolant storage bottle. Gen 3 and 4 had exhaust heat recovery. Someone out there in the internet must know what Toyota did to make warm up even better on Gen 5.

I use display mpg to know if I am doing better or worse over distances. Like if it says 70 mpg, and it starts trending down, not getting 70 anymore. If starts going over 70, actually getting over 70. Like pressure on gas pedal or different techniques will show if one way is better, or worse than another.
Otherwise I want coolant temp, oil temp, and oil pressure gauges.
Typically I start the engine in town in plans for a highway run. Don’t really look at mpg then. I don’t use the car much as a hybrid yet.

 

I believe the gen2 thermos was like the fuel tank bladder; only installed for North America in order to achieve emission ratings good enough for incentives.

Similarly, the exhaust heat recovery system was only in Canadian and US models, not Mexico.

 

Gen 3 has EHR too, was not problematic. Gen 4 apparently had a manufacturing defect, for some time anyway.

 

Yes you're right. I forgot Gen 3 had it but yes! As for the Gen 4 EHRS, it definitely had problems, at least until 2020 MY cars, we changed TONS of them under warranty. Never touched that on my 2021 but then, i sold it at a hair under 80m km..

 

Maybe Toyota needs to a little less “continuous improvement”, and devote more attention to issues like this: 5 model years until they addressed this dumpster fire…

I think there’s STILL a backlog on parts, judging from the bypass threads here. Coupled with dealerships barely aware of the problem.

 

Backlog? You mean like backorder? If so, i can assure you it's not! But a couple inches of hose is less expensive than a front pipe with a Cat on it.

 

Behind closed doors, that’s likely what Toyota’s saying too.

 

I read Ester-based motor oils can handle water & fuel dilution the best. If I was in your situation I'd consider the motor oil brands Redline, royal purple or RLI.

SM-A536V ?

 

Just did another oil change on the Prime today and i tried exactly that. I also used a more effective filter, the idea being if there is less crap in there at the next oil change, what i see might not be fuel/humidity but fine crap. For that reason, now that i think about it, i almost regret not putting the same oil that was there (Pennzoil Ultra Platinum) as it's not a Apple to Apple comparaison anymore..

Notice how the oil is still dirty looking even now that it's summer, ambient temps are always over 20°c and that i do a lot more highway miles with the new job..


At least the filter didn't looked plugged.. and i didn't notice foreign materials/crap in there..


I'll report back in 3 or 4 months but that engine really is tough on oil..

 

That's because the Prius Atkinson cycle design holding these valves open and blah blah blah yeah the engines kind of regurgitating its own puke like a bird feeding its young Right so that's kind of what's going on a bit here You can get somebody who really wants to explain all this and scientific terms with big words like mayonnaise but at the end of the day book in the pan that's what you get oh well to have real clean oil and all this other stuff might not be ideal for what everybody's desiring to come out of the tailpipe for whatever reason planet saving so on and so forth. I guess the industry had to make some pretty hard choices about their products when all the funny business started back in the '70s with gas and fossil fuels and will run out someday and all of this and that and we're destroying the planet so this is where that technology has led us You get not quite as much out of the vehicle that you might have at one point but you're doing much better for the overall good I guess and here we are and I don't think that's ever going to clean up summer winter spring or fall it'll always look similar like similar same whatever.

 

The problem doesn't have to do much with the Atkinson cycle that all hybrids run since ages ago and more to do with the Direct Injection. Direct Injection combined with short/burst engines operation times leads to diluted oil. It was the same thing with my ex wife's Mazda 3. I fear that i won't be able to find a way to cure that on that car and will probably end up using an oil that is 1 grade thicker (0w20) permanently to try not to score those cylinder walls on the long term..

Btw, that filter is the one i'm going to end up using. 90915-10010. The OE filter from a 2022-up Tundra with the turbo engine. Same thing as the "true" OE 90915-10009 but a bit longer. Like the F1 is the longer version of the F2, now named an N1. More pleats inside = more filtration media and the holes on the base plate are bigger so in theory, it also should flow better, longer.. also, i like the filtering media of the 10009/10010 better.

 

A larger filter surface is probably better in comparison. But an important factor is the opening pressure of the bypass valve. When the oil is cold, all the oil does not go through the filter folds, but directly through the pressure valve.
A very tight pressure valve will create oil starvation, while a very weak valve will allow all the oil to pass through itself, bypassing the filtration folds.