Prevent EGR troubles?

I cleaned my egr cooler, had a plastic pan plugged up one end with plastic and a towel filled with purple stuff spray? I think it was that? Soaked for a couple hours, then sprayed out with carb cleaner. Worked like a charm.

 

These cat converter passage ways are really tiny.

 

I preventatively maintain our 2010’s hv battery, and it’s going strong.

We have a 2017 Lexus RX450h and the battery compares well.

When I see mpg degradation, I look to see how many miles I’ve gone since the last egr circuit cleanse. I’m performing that service every 50k miles after the first one at 120 k miles.

Good luck and keep us posted .

 

Do you have a sense if the Oil Catch Can helped, reduced EGR clog-up rate: a lot, a little none that you can tell?

 

I’ll know in 30 k miles or so .

My last egr circuit cleanse was paired with the occ install.

So we’ll see in 2020.

 

O'Reilly has Techron on sale now - $6 for 12 oz or $9 for 20oz (at least in CA) and 3x reward points.
This is cheaper than Amazon.

They claim safe for cat converters and O2 sensors.

 

Unless you're doing this tank after tank, I think the "nearly empty" tank stipulation is their lawyers talking: even if it's just just down to half full, you pour in an additive and then refill, it's mixed.

 

My 2010 had a compromised intake/PCV/EGR at 70k.

Pixel XL ?

 

Do you guys think this is something I should prepare for sooner than later? I just picked up a 2015 with 28K on it this past weekend. Been doing lots of reading and the OCC will be in the works.

I avg about 1000 a week, but for the next week, only driving a little over half of that since im carpooling with a friend at the 2/3 mark. I got mid 42mpg which I thought wasn't too bad. 3 big hills on the way to and from work which kill the fuel economy. It's pretty much a matter of time before it sees 100k within the next year or two. It's my wife's car and she only drives a little over 100 miles a day as opposed to my 198miles a day.

Good to note that I have a decent tool set since there was a time when I wanted to be ASE certified and went haywire with Snap-On. Watched the DIY, tons of work involved, but I rather do this versus blowing a headgasket...

 

That's a good pick. There's TSB about earlier years having oil consumption, and the fix is piston and ring replacement (no small task). Model year 2015 is the one year that came from the factory with both the updated pistons and rings.

Good! Never to soon for this. I put in a Morosso universal can around 70K kms, only wish I'd done it sooner. This thread has pretty much everything:

Oil Catch Can, Eliminate that knock! | PriusChat

You can monitor the EGR condition relatively easily by removing just the pipe between EGR valve and intake manifold. FWIW, I did a complete EGR clean, at around 70K kms, a little early, but don't regret it. I think once you've done it once it will get easier. There is one bolt on the underside of the cooler that's a bear to reach; I think if I ever do it again I will not bother to reinstall that one nut: everything is very solid regardless. Yeah read through this thread from stem-to-stern, lots of info:

EGR & Intake Manifold Clean Results | PriusChat

Watch @NutzAboutBolts videos, pinned at top of 3rd gen maintenance sub-forum. The main thing I take away from those, is yeah, I can do this.

 

Honestly don't know what i'm looking at in that photo and/or what exactly the good news is that you're delivering.... lol. I'd have thought it was ring clearances at first, but I see no decimals or measurement characters. I'll be running a Group IV PAO Full Synthetic 0w20 in this Prius with a OCI & UOA at 15K as a benchmark and go from there. Might even install a dual-bypass system to increase oil capacity, filtration and increase OCI's.

Definitely going to read through that thread completely, I read the first and last 3 pages of that thread the other night. Going to read it all during downtime at work... haha.

This is good news regarding ease to check on the EGR. I assume if the EGR looks cruddy, the intake plenum will need cleaning as well. I will definitely read that thread as well sir. Thank you.

Lastly, I know this question might sound dumb... But... Every other car out there, there's people who delete their EGR pipes. This vehicle seems to have an entire EGR system... I'll do more searching for this answer myself of course, but if you have the short answer, that's appreciated!

 

Ah sorry, that's my cheat sheet of pistons and piston ring part numbers, for the 3rd gen model years. There's TSB's for excess oil consumption in earlier model years, and the fix is to replace both piston rings with parts that the 2015 already has.

Yeah the EGR circuit continues in the Intake Manifold, with some small diameter passages at each intake. A complete cleaning of the EGR system accordingly should include cleaning the intake manifold.

I believe an EGR delete would be counterproductive. For starters by increasing pollution and throwing an engine code, but closer to home: a properly functioning EGR system is apparently paramount to keep engine temps down.

Regarding 15K oil change interval: I'm on the other side of that pendulum. Toyota Canada tells me to change my oil every 6 months or 8000 kms (roughly 5000 miles). I'm fine with that, not one to argue. Our mileage is low, the months always governs, I don't much care: spring and fall, drain-and-fill.

I'm using Toyota 0W20, DIY since day one, zero consumption so far. Which is a little weird, even for me: I'm used to Honda's that needed anywhere between a cup and a quart top up between changes.

Addendum:

In light of that, maybe 6 months or 5K miles would be a little nuts. But yeah, I wouldn't exceed the US 12 months or 10K miles. Or split the difference?

 

I don't want to elaborate too much on the characteristics of a Group IV/V vs North America's Group III False advertising of "Full" Synthetic haha. But that's pretty much it, a Group IV or V is a true full Synthetic and a Group III is a blend of synthetic oil and petroleum mineral oils.

OCI - Oil Change Interval
UOA - Used Oil Analysis

So to be more blunt, these engines will still consume oil, as that's just the nature of design. Weird design, but I guess i'll have to just keep stock of oil...

And with that, I can see why an EGR or even PCV delete is out of the question haha.

 

The "" was for 15K OCI.

 

EGR clogging can accelerate oil consumption, also a fair number of head gasket failures seem to be tied in.

 

I been doing it on a 2017 Infiniti with 55K miles. Twin Turbo GDI V6. UOAs come back perfectly fine. Bout to submit a 20K soon. The oil is rated for 1 year or 25K normal service. 1 year or 15K severe. Oil levels have never dropped, where a lot of others in the forum are adding 1qt every 3k miles, boggles my mind.

I would hope this little I-4 could be a bit more forgiving haha.

Yeah, definitely why i'm trying to keep that under control haha.

 

Car manufacturers when to "low expansion" pressure piston rings in cars during the past decade to reduce friction and to increase gas mileage. An unintended consequence is greater "blow by" from oil rings which causes "oil burning." This often occurs in engines of higher mileage or engines from delayed oil changes.

Changing oil more often and an OCC, as well as EGR cleaning evidently reduces piston ring and cylinder wall wear to delay the onset of excess oil burning. Oil, water and exhaust gas particles introduces into the cylinders which works down into the rings and cylinder walls obviously doesn't help.

 

Something I'd been meaning to do, think I could remember, but you just reminded me: to take a look at the Fuelly stats, for 3rd gen Prius years. there's a slight uptick in 2015 (the year with revised pistons and rings, supposedly less prone to oil consumption), not much, might just be "noise":

Toyota Prius MPG - Actual MPG from 7,456 Toyota Prius owners

4th gen is getting insanely improved numbers.

 

All that gook that comes into the cylinders could work down the cylinders and stick to the ring grooves in the pistons. Since there is less spring pressure in newer rings, they are less likely to overcome the stickiness of the gunk. This also adds to the increase of oil blowby into the combustion chamber. Therefore, more oil burning.