Oil Consumption 2010 Prius

you need to find out how much oil you're burning. how do you know they filled it properly?

 

^ My first thought. Did you check the level right after that last oil change?

That oil consumption disclaimer your mechanic found on the Internet is in your Owner's Manual. It IS a mealy mouthed plateful of tripe served hot by Toyota's lawyers, but there it is.

At this juncture, I would top it up and regularly monitoring it for a while. Also, no signs of leakage?

 

I would make it a habit to check the oil level on a car. Since you bought this used, you don't really know what the previous owner did to it.

 

You're not going to know if the problem "gets worse" if you don't know how bad the problem currently is....or even WHAT your problem currently is.

It's pretty clear that you don't check your oil volume, so you're going to have to get looped in on how to do that before you can figure out IF your car is actually burning oil instead of leaking oil.....or just not having been filled up properly by the last person who changed your oil.
Oh....and if the person who changed the oil was the same knucklehead that told you that you need new rings, then there's all kind of bad things happening with your car, and very little of it is your car's fault.

1. Fire your mechanic. He or she is much more interested in boat payments than car repair.
It's probably a "he" since women are usually smart enough not to buy boats.

2. Assess. Determine if you're using oil, and how much your using. If you're using 1q every 5,000 miles then you're going to chew through enough oil to light the idiot light when you're yanking and banking the vehicle.
There's only about 4q of oil when it's full, so when your car gets to be middle aged (6 years and 123,000 miles is not "new") you have to be more concerned about health care than when you drive a 1 year old vehicle with 18,000 miles on it.
Of course.......if you start looking after your car's health when it's young, then it will be healthier when it's old....right?
If your car is using oil then make sure it's not LEAKING oil.
If you're not leaking oil, then checking your oil level every time you get gas will allow you to know how much you're using.

3. Measure your MPG.
No.....don't pay attention to the display. Hand calculate.
The thing is....if your car is getting good MPG, then it's running well...and maintaining your oil volume might be as simple as adding 1 quart of oil every now and then. If you're burning enough oil for your car to be used in a mosquito control program, then replacing the engine with a used motor makes more sense for a 6-year-old car than tearing the motor down and replacing the rings.

4. Don't Panic. Yes....burning a quart of oil every 3-4,000 miles is bad, and it will probably kill your car......in another 100,000 miles or so.

Good Luck!

 

excellent. note the level after refilling, then check daily until you're comfortable with how fast it's dropping. then, you can begin to spread out the time between checking.

there are some good threads here on moving to a heavier oil, and also, a new one today from someone who used 6 tanks of techron, and successfully removed the deposits from his piston rings.

 

However, I haven't seen any evidence that "moving to a heavier oil" will prevent, postpone, or cure the oil-guzzling problem if (as seems likely) it's caused by overheated oil coking and clogging the ring grooves and drain holes.

 

Not to put too fine a point on this, but you really don't know that your other Toyota isn't burning oil either.....unless you're checking it regularly.
I'll save you the dash out the garage....It is.

All vehicles use some minute amount of oil between oil changes.
This was not such a big deal when OCIs (oil change intervals) were 3,000 miles and engines held 5 quarts.
If you ran a quart low?
You had four more, and besides.....the motor got new oil in every few months.

Now?
Oil sumps are smaller and OCIs are 3x longer on average.....and STILL engines hold together even after 120,000 of neglect AND they still get most of 50 MPG!!

Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Like I said earlier....this isn't the end of the world.
You just need to pay a little bit of attention and keep your oil volume topped off, and consider reading up on other maintenance tasks and their periodicities for this car so that you won't get taken by crooks that tell their customers that they need new rings.

Good Luck!!

 

So I've kinda run into the same problem, I bought the car new 2010, and have done all the routine maintenance, I'm at 118,000 now, last oil change at Toyota only seem to last maybe 7000, and now the light is starting to come on again at about 5000 while turning. Changes were done with synthetic oil. Just got new tires and asked Toyota about the oil issues and he said it looks barely just beneath normal and it should be good for another 5000 they can't find a single problem, certainly doesn't seem that way. I have not checked the oil while filling up but it's definitely not leaking on the street either. Please keep me up to date on your situation and what you find cause it sounds like I'm in the same boat too, synthetic oil changes only lasting like a normal change, stupid and expensive.

 

This is my favorite Prius subject - oil consumption! My 2010 has almost 160k miles on it and has been using quite a bit of oil since 90k miles. I'd say it averages 1qt/1000 miles and sometimes more than that. At the last check I estimated it was down near 1 qt/600 miles and I was thinking I should look for a good used engine. The EGR pipe into the intake (easy to check with a 10mm wrench) is almost completely plugged with black sludge. I bought the car new and do all my own maintenance - always using Mobil 1 0-20W full synthetic. I follow the Toyota recommendations and only change oil every 10k miles. The car still runs and drives like new and gets between 42 and 48 mpg. The only negative is having to check the oil frequently.

My theory: The low-tension rings are getting stuck on the pistons which causes them to not wipe enough oil off the cylinder walls. Before the last change I found a couple of long high speed hills and floored it to hold high rpm as long as possible. I did that a few times. The idea was to weaken or release the rings from their grooves in the cylinders. Before I changed oil I used a bottle of Motor Medic and drove around the neighborhood for five minutes before draining the hot oil in the garage. Though it isn't a completely thorough test, it has been about 700 miles since that oil change and the oil is still clear and hasn't dropped more than 1/8 qt down the stick. I'll keep watching it and hope for the best. We plan on keeping this car through 500k miles. We've had several lesser cars still running well at 300k before we sold them.

 

What did you find when you drained the oil after the Motor Medic treatment? Did the oil come out dark, indicating some of the deposits have been removed? Any noticeable gains in performance or smoother engine idle? Ever change the PCV valve or look at the intake manifold?

I did a BG EPR treatment before our last oil change at 140k miles and on 2200 miles since the oil change, only consumed about 3 or 4 ounces based on the dipstick. Before this consumption was a quart every 6500 miles. I am also using 5W-30 which has helped slow the drink.

 

i agree with you on the low tension and stuck ring theory. ICE works harder in a hybrid especially in a pulse and glide cycle as there is no idling and cooling after power runs and oil is left to bake on pistons.

i had to look up what Motor Medic was. is it different from other engine flush products?

BTW, it has been my experience (different cars) that oil consumption goes up exponentially as the oil ages, so early oil consumption numbers may not be a good indication.

 

Change your oil at 5K miles, not the 10K miles change that Toyota later on revised. This was for marketing purpose only. Also use 0W-30 weight Mobil 1 oil. The 0W-20 weight is too thin, and is being used to meet CAFE standards. Even Mobil 1 lists on their website that 0W-30 can be used. Some Toyota dealers in other countries are using even heavier weight oil.

 

You would think that Toyota out of all car manufacturers can redesign its small gas engine to last few hundred thousand miles without burning oil. What gives?

 

no one knows. a small percentage of gen 3 engines are burning oil around 100k. if there were an answer, it wouldn't be happening as much.

 

The Gen2's burn a lot of it. It's just a function of age and high speed driving. Every car company has it (some worse than others).

Just keep an eye on it and catch it before you run it dry.

 

Read away, it's not just Toyota. My grand daughter's husband had an Accord that got to drinking so he traded it off, stepson has an Accord that used oil so bad that it fouls the plugs and had plugged up the converter. He's tried to get Honda to help repair to no avail. My stepdaughter has a '14 Acura CPO that started sucking oil and Acura replaced the engine on their dime. A friend has a RAV4 that started using oil shortly after 100,000.


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and lots of other makes. I don't like that I have to add a qt every 3000 miles or so, but I can live with it.

I'm coming up on my 180,000 mile oil change and am going to do the EPR+MOA treatment again and see if it improves any more.

 

You had to drag the gen2 into this

 

All's fair in oil consumption .

I think it is a fair comparison given the OP is potentially buying either a Gen2 or a Gen3. To not buy a Gen3 due to a symptom that the Gen2 also has I feel needs further clarity.

All that needs to be done is:

• release the hood
• place the prop rod into the slot
• Pull the dipstick
• Read the dipstick
• If oil is needed to be added:
• Open the oil cap
• Add the desired amount
• Check the dipstick
• Close the oil cap

All in all, a 5 minute activity .

I give my wife a pair of gloves to help increase the odds of checking .