How much oil burning is acceptable?

Looks like it is about $10 a quart on Amazon.

 

A brave soul in a warm area of the country would need to test it and understand that the change interval is unknown and that an oil analysis afterword would be recommended.

I can only find a couple folks that have used it in older cars.

It is semi synthetic but is the only 4 cycle oil meant for the sump and to be burned without leaving deposits or creating soot, interesting stuff, due to the additive package it could possibly unstick coked rings.

Anyone want to ruin their engine?
I know a few here have used 50wt so maybe...

 

Rmay635703, SN Plus is supposed to help with keeping the new engines clean. GM seems to have attempted to address the issue prior with Dexos from what I’ve read.....

Funny thing is, looking through oil bottles at Walmart, I found the first label with SN Plus to be Ford Motorcraft, I think 5W-20 or something like that....

 

I accelerate and drive slower than most, and glide to stoplights. But that's what I do with my Subaru too. I could get higher gas mileage. I'm not on highways that often, but my typical highway round trip mileage is around 55 mpg or more. My average is dropped by a lot of short trips (less than 5 miles one way) where the car doesn't get warmed up. But if I'm going 10 miles one way around town in the summer months, my round trip mileage can be 55-60+ mpg because the cruising speeds around town are pretty optimal for getting good gas mileage (35-45 mph). I could also get lower gas mileage. My Prius gets less than 40 mpg in the winter due to very short trips, cold, and the high rolling resistance and slipping of snow and ice. But I only drive it enough to keep the batteries happy (once per week or so), using my Subaru for most driving in the winter. My one tank of 38 mpg winter driving dropped my previous 50+ mpg average down to 49, and it's inching back up again.

I've been using 0W-20. I did the last oil change using Valvoline high mileage 0W-20 for no other reason than that the label read well and the price was low at Walmart. The previous changes were by others, so I don't know the brands. Maybe I should have stuck with non-high mileage oil. My car doesn't burn an appreciable amount of oil.

I'm on the original 12V battery and original hybrid battery at 173K miles now (have owned the car since 150K miles). Both batteries seem solid. I even accidently discharged the 12V to zero a couple times two years ago with no long term ill effects.

If you're getting only 38 mpg, and it's not just short trips in the winter, something is probably not right with your car. The previous owner of my car reported it was getting just 35 mpg to the dealer just before I bought it. It eventually popped check engine lights and require replacement of the A/F sensor and MAF sensor. So maybe the fuel trim is off on yours too.

 

Unfortunately my drinking is on the down side with this cholesterol medication. Wonder if drinking is better for you that all these pills made where?

For OP:
As for burning oil, over 100K you have a great deal for a great car if you got it cheap. If you are worried try 5W30, 0W30, or 0W40.

I always get rid of my cars at 50K to my family members and they give them the ax when I give them another 50K car. Over 125K you are on you own.
Quart every 1K is very excessive for any car. Even a time warp drive.

So a finger up the tailpipe did not work for this car?????? That's how you check prostate issues in a Prius.

I am shocked that anyone has a 200K Prius that does not burn/use oil. Absolute miracle.

 

SN Plus will not address the issues with burning oil, it’s not made to burn either (no normal automotive oil is)

Also “divisible by 5” oils are not SN Plus only the divisible by 8 oils are. Aka 0w16 for example

 

Haha! Yes I'm also shocked, and usually skeptical when people say their 200k+ prius doesn't use any. Every high mileage prius I've ever had or encountered burns unfortunately.

 

The Oxygen sensors in the exhaust pipe? I've read when they go mpg drops. You can check ohms on them. both are reachable by removing panels from below, the main engine panel, and the one directly behind it. Acceptable ohm range in the attachment.

Our mpg was not coming back this spring, so I was casting about, checked the O2 sensors. Also tried fuel injector cleaner, and that seemed to help some.

 

The one on the exhaust manifold was what was bad on my car (well, technically the previous owner's car at that point), the air/fuel ratio sensor. This is the wideband sensor:

Oxygen sensor - Wikipedia

 

A car that burns oil will obviously foul the 02 sensors and kill the converters much quicker than one that doesn't. An 02 can be lazy long before it throws a code and mileage can suffer slightly before the light comes on. SN rated oils have a maximum limit on ZDDP which will take longer to kill the converter if it's burning oil but it will still kill the converter prematurely.

At the risk of making a blanket statement, if you're looking to use a heavier oil to slow/stop oil consumption, a 0w-xx is not the best choice. These usually have a lower HTHS value vs Kv. A higher HTHS is what you're looking for if you want to slow consumption via oil getting past the rings. With a cheaper oil, a 5w30 will have a higher HTHSv than a 0w30 and a 10w30 will have a higher HTHSv than a 5w30... As you get into the better oils, the TRUE synthetics that are almost nonexistent, you can get a decently high HTHSv with a 0w30. If you live in a very cold area and do short trips, stick with the 0w20. If not, a 5w30 is not only ok, it's probably the better choice.

I have never agreed with manufacturers using an oil with a low 2.6 HTHS like Toyota's 0w20. 2.6 is recognized as the absolute lowest without having excessive wear. The gains in mpg are worthwhile to a manufacturer that sells a million cars and can be penalized based on average mpg but for us, that 0.1mpg difference isn't an acceptable tradeoff for quicker engine wear. Between a low friction ring pack and a super low HTHS, it's no wonder these cars burn oil. Even my Grand National on the original engine that made 490rwhp back then and 220,000 miles did not burn oil. While it may be normal around here, burning 1qt every 1,000 miles is absolutely ridiculous by most standards. Let's not forget that burning a significant amount of oil lowers the effective octane and it causes combustion chamber deposits (no, your cheap cleaners do nothing to clean them) that not only raise compression over time but they quickly develop hot spots which cause detonation. Lower octane, combustion chamber hot spots, a fragile low friction ring pack...... Not the best combo.

 

Not sure about burning oil...

But divisible by 8 is not accurate:

 

Several Ilsac/Dexos style 20 and 30 wts that meet LSPI spec are already SN+. Pennzoil, M1 and Valvoline off the top of my head, not to mention Motorcraft 5-30 synblend... I'd guess we'll see all the big name brand's LSPI 20's & 30's wear SN+ before the SP roll out in a few years.

 

Interesting
SN+ Is not next gen oil, it’s a stop gap until gf-6 oils are approved

Base 8 oils will not be mix able with base 5 oils when that time comes.

Originally the oil institute did not want base 8 & 5 oils listed under the same grade (like SN+) because of confusion between the incompatible gf-6 oils.

Odd they backpedalled on that

 

Agree there, and questionable if it's better or worse for us port injected, non-turbo Prius drivers. Still a 5k miles oil in these engines, imo, and regarding full syn, of course.

 

I’ll try to quote the text from the Mobil site about LSPI: “LSPI is caused by particles or droplets of fuel and oil that ignite in the combustion chamber.” Sure sounds like it should help with burning oil. But definitely sounds like you’re more knowledgeable than me....

 

Is this excessive oil consumption problem I see often here only applies to 3rd Gen? I use to own 3rd Gen Prius, but did not keep it long enough to develop any drinking problem. Have 4th gen been fixed this problem?

That's 545MPQ (miles per qt). Seems to be way too excessive to me to be stated in Manual. I looked for a similar statement in Prime manual, but could not find any specific number stated. In between either 5K or 10K oil change interval, I have not seen even 1 qt loss of oil in any of my recent cars I owned in last 15 years. Yeah, my first car, Chevy Vega was a heavy drinker. It went through a case of oil in less than 600 miles, but that was back then. LOL

 

Iteresting, there's a Technical Service Bulletin on 3rd gen excessive oil consumption. This thread has attachements TSB-1 and TSB-2, on the subject:

TSB on Excessive Oil Consumption for 2ZR-FXE Engine | PriusChat

If you read through TSB-2, the oil consumption test, you'll see that Toyota seems to have lowered the bar for oil consumption, to 1 US quart per 1100~1300 miles. This is in comparison to the 1.1 US quarts per 600 miles noted in the Owner's Manual.

I'd agree the latter is an affront, and would propose that Toyota should prominently publish this "feature", say, in their new vehicle sales brochures.

Looking through a pdf of the US Prime Owner's Manual, the wording "1.1 US quart per 600 miles" is absent, they only say "a certain amount" (on page 582):



I also checked a pdf of the 2016 Prius Owner's Manual, US edition, and the language is identical to the above.

 

Yeah, that's what I found out, and I edited my previous comment. Of course, with Prime, if you do a lot of EV drive, miles run can be way more than actual engine run. I am currently running about 60% EV, so at current odometer of 15K, ICE has run only 6K miles.

 

LSPI is a turbo problem and not the failure mode in a Gen III

While SN+ may “help” it still has compounds that when flat out burnt can still cause buildup.

The oil I listed forms a vapor not a mist or droplets making it safely burnable, it also lacks any metal content and cannot coke up

 

My 2010 I got this summer is telling me to change oil now. I checked the levels before a long road trip last week, and it looks like the oil went down about 1/4 of the way over the course of 1,000 miles - so that's right on the money, I guess.

The oil is still pretty clear, so I was thinking I should top off and not change. Should I reset the change oil message and just judge by the stick?

I am also considering, based off other parts of the forums, moving to 5W-20 when I change the oil. Should I keep topping off with 0W-20 until it looks dirty enough to change or just do it now...