2013 Prius high oil consumption. How bad is that - really?

Owners Manual states the oil qty needed to go from lower to upper pip; it’s something like 1.5 litres or 1.6 US qts. So not that bad: specd capacity is 4.2 litres or 4.5 US qts.

 

In the affected VIN section it says ”before JTDKN3DU#E1791355”. I have JTDKN36U805xxxxxx (x because i dont wanna type whole vin). I wonder if my car is before or after or belong to some other bulletin (because it was sold in europe originally).

 

It may apply as the cars were all made in Japan. You have to compare the last six digits.

 

Okay, then my car manufactured way before. 08 versus 79

 

Yes. The year in question is 2014.

 

Checked the oil today after brake light installation. It appears that consumption is 0.3-0.4ltr/1000km and car has 212kkm on the clock. Maybe one third of that driving was highway 80-110km/h. This kind of consumption does not bother me. It’s clearly less than in my K20A2 Honda which has much less kilometers But 10x more than in my Volvo which has more kilometers.

 

That's not runaway consumption, but getting up there. If you changed the oil at a conservative 8000 kms or 6 months, and never replenished, you could be virtually into oil-starved condition, by next oil change. You might try a solvent soak, where you take out the spark plugs and put a little in each cylinder.

 

That’s several days job if done properly. Perhaps next summer or something. Car is not driven a lot (maybe 500-600km per month) so there’s no urgency. I’m trying to use as good oils as possible and use engine block heater during winter (+mask cover) and hoping to keep carbon build up minimal. Fuel is good here and i use 98E5. Not sure how i came to conclusion it burn cleaner. I use that in Honda as well

 

After recent dealership oil change the oil consumption is less than ever. 1300km driving and i did not dare to add any more than 0.2litres. I noticed that dealership had used Toyota oil (previously they used Castrol Magnatec stop-start) but that cannot make difference(?). Another thing that is different is that now car has clearly less highway driving than before. This may be the real reason behind.

Lets see. Probably back to normal after some more kilometers. And no, coolant level not going down