Does the 2010 really have issues??

welcome!

unfortunately, some do. and figuring out if a used one does is problematic. most serious is oil burning around 100k. but it's a small percentage of total vehicles, and most have no problem.
the other thing is rattles, which you can find in a test drive.
2009 is pretty bullet proof. how many miles on them?

 

deteriorating. some burn a quart or two between changes, and others are up to a quart per 1,000 miles.
toyota considers 1 quart per 600 miles the cutoff for warranty, but they are out of warranty anyway.

you can find plenty of '2010 burning oil' threads here, using the search function. and you will also find many people chiming in that there's doesn't burn any oil.
there is also a problem with egr and intake manifold clogging, but those can be cleaned.

 

We have a 2010 Prius II with 161 k miles and running strong.

I began to notice oil consumption around 120 k miles on the order of a quart every 4500 miles. I have done several things to reduce this amount, but the key is monitoring .

I check both of our cars (we also have a 2017 RX450h) every Saturday morning for oil level, 12v battery voltage and other visible fluid levels (inverter, engine coolant).

Keep an eye on those and it goes a long way toward keeping the Prius in good standing.

 

A list of what I have done:

• Gone up to 5w-30 oil with no effect on fuel economy (averaging 51.4 mpg over the last 21 k miles )
• Keep the speed I travel on the freeway at 0-5 mph above the posted limit (I used to do 10-15 mph above and that is where the Prius uses more oil)
• Use BG Products EPR prior to draining the oil to cleanse the engine (there is gas that blows by and leads to contamination in the oil)
• Use BG Products MOA when I change the oil (helps keep the oil basic and fend off the contamination of gas which makes the oil acidic, degrading rubber components)

I have also done the egr system and intake manifold cleanse to stay ahead of carbon deposits .

Hope that helps.

 

Stephen, I believe I remember seeing one Gen3 thread about getting a new engine under warranty. I also seem to remember Gen2 threads about oil turning to sludge. One of the culprits was the quality of the oil stored in the dealer's tank.

How often do you and your daughter pop the hood and check the fluids?

Those who only have the oil changed don't know whether or not their car burns oil. Then one day we'll see a thread about the check engine light getting lit only during turns. That's when we'll suggest the owner check the oil level which will be very low and may not even be on the dipstick.

My car burns oil. I don't know when it started and since I don't measure it I don't know how much but it isn't enough to bother me. I'll add some when it gets low enough. My 2000 Intrigue burned oil from the day it was made. If I had followed the recommended oil change interval I would have been rotating the oil.

Have you looked at the data on http://www.truedelta.com ?

MY2009 was very short. MY2010 was very long.

Look for and download the sales brochures for every model year you are looking at so you can determine what was available and how it was packaged.

Happy hunting.

 

Also check out the Consumer Reports study indicating that there is no correlation between oil consumption and engine problems. Basically, the downside is only the cost of oil.

 

unless you fail to monitor the oil level carefully, and come back here with, 'i went for an oil change, and they said there wasn't any oil to change'.
plus, a prius that burns a lot of oil is a prius that defeats the purpose of the low pollution design, which matters to some of us, although we aren't always in the financial position to rectify it in a timely manner.

 

Do catalytic converters suffer from REALLY heavy oil burning? Not sure.

Our 2010 has around 50K miles (yup), zero oil burn so far, but who knows. All our previous Hondas needed anywhere between one and three cups between oil changes, never thought anything of it. I'm a little in awe of the lack of consumption, so far, on this Prius.

Ours was built in August 09, and we bought in November 10, new. It has only a 1/8" audio jack that you connect to the earbud socket on a phone, works fine for playing music off the phone. It has bluetooth phone connection for calls, but that depends on the level? And this is Canadian, so not sure how it correlates to US.

 

go with 2012

 

Just cus you got one.

Seriously, when you did the intake manifold cleaning, you mention the egr passage just goes in a few inches, then opens up? When I had just the EGR pipe off our 2010, it seemed like that passage was going the full width of the manifold. My pipe cleaner didn't reach that far, but quite far, and it sure seemed like no opening up. Maybe part of the EGR clogging issue, there was mention of revised intake manifold.

 

Your owning year bias is showing.

 

Search in the Gen 2 area and you'll see plenty of oil consumption. Just tell your daughter to pop the hood every so often (no more than 2 weeks in between depending on miles traveled) and show her how to read the dipstick and add oil.

I have trained my wife how to do it. It can be done.

 

2010 is gen3 and has many improvements over 2009 gen2. You will love the Prius, outstanding gas mileage and roomier for its size. Less problems compared to many non hybrids of same age.