Met a 10,000 mi/month, Prius Prime owner

Depends on the vehicle and the type of driving it goes through. I had a 2010 Kizashi and went to 15,000 mile interval after the warranty expired. It was at 160,000 miles before it was totaled in an accident. With the Prime, if you're charging everyday, I don't see why you couldn't do 10k oil change interval on it. Do it after the warranty expires and also get an oil analysis.

 

Just because you aren't paying out of pocket, doesn't mean there isn't an increased cost. More oil changes means more chances for spills along the waste stream and the upstream.

Oil sludging is mostly caused when the oil gets too hot and starts breaking down. The synthetic oil in cars now is more resistant to break down from heat. Just like our cars, phones, and air conditioning, oil has gotten better overtime.

In the early 2000's, some Toyota engines didn't have enough cooling channels. Which resulted in hot spots that cooked the oil. The oil change interval back then was 5000 miles. Sludging was happening in cars that were following the schedule. Unless that Lincoln Mark LT was a 2008, the interval was also 5000 miles. It went up to 7500 for 2008 for the F150 family.

So shorter oil changes will not save you from design or manufacturing faults.

If the interval length wasn't set by the engineers, they would be shorter to give dealers more service business.

7500 miles was around the time the oil life monitor in the GMs called for a change. No oil related problems when they left the family with 130k and 70k miles.

The Sable saw maybe 5000 miles a year; one was under 3000. I figured annual changes with a non-synthetic was easier to keep track of than every over year on synthetic. The car didn't have a fancy odometer counter for tracking service.

 

I'm doing 5K adjusted for % on the HV meter.

Everyone is free to change their oil as they see fit.

Yes, shorter oil changes than recommended will save you from a design flaw. The longer it is in there the more it degrades - it deposits less sludge. This is why this is happening - because the oil change intervals have been changed to compensate for the new advances in oil. Sometimes it does not work out.

There are absurdly high oil change numbers out there. There are vehicles out there that recommend 12, 15 and even 16.

 

So those Toyotas needed a 2500 change interval to be okay? 5000 miles had been the norm for years before the design flaw.

Europe has longer intervals because their oils are truly synthetic Group IV or V. They also had lower sulfur in their fuel, which ends up contaminating the oil. Then cars, like diesels, simply have large sumps, with capacities measured in gallons.

 

Normal oil change intervals overhere in Europe are between 15.000 and 30.000 km for most cars.

There have been longer intervals but most manufacturers have gone back to 15 to 30k since longer was getting problematic for some cars especially because the oil sumps have become quite small in some cars.

 

I responded to 10K oil change intervals. I also stated you are free to do them when you want. Do as you wish - if you read my post I state that 5K is reasonable.

 

I gave examples in which the recommended change interval was 5000 miles, and design flaws meant sludging at that interval. Your response to that was more frequent changes prevent the sludging.

 

I change my oil every 7-8,000 miles just because I like to err on the side of caution. I would be comfortable going 10K, but I'd rather not find out after the fact that i was going too far. You can't undo that.

 

Even with a Prime ?

How much does you engine run and what’s your lifetime MPG?

I’m at 153 mpg at 8600 miles on the odometer.

That’s 3x our 2010’s, so the engine should be used 3x as infrequent .

Will stick with the 10k and check the dipstick frequently .

 

Are you using BG MOA with the Prime?

 

I see what you mean. The small Toyota engines no, that was reasonable to assume a 5K oil change would be great.

The F150 was poor judgment on the auto manufacturer to suggest that oil change schedule since it is a truck and probably will see heavy use. I bet people towing changed their oil every 7500 and slugged those passages up.

 

Not yet.

But I will be.

 

Yes.

But @bresna was commenting on doing a 7-8k OCI, so I added my thoughts to that .

I follow the recommended OCI on this one.

 

I realize that Toyota recommends 10,000 miles for an oil change but they're not the ones who will have to pay for any damage that might occur if their recommendation causes any damage. I will be on the hook for that. An oil change is less than $100. A blown engine is thousands of dollars. I'd rather err on the side of $100.

 

How does the engine blow?

I had a 2010 that consumed a quart of oil every 5-6 k miles. I checked the dip stick every Saturday and topped up as needed.

This car got us to 200k miles before selling it to someone who needed a reliable car (they were coming from an older BMW). My plan was to run the car for another at least 100k miles and it would have easily made it.

If we use $100 an oil change and do what others suggest here rather than what the manual says (an oil change every 5k miles), I would have done 20 additional oil changes or added $2k more to the maintenance spend.

I stuck to the 10k OCI and just monitored the dip stick to avoid the consumption getting worse.

But the engine won’t catastrophically fail if it has oil in it, so check the dipstick and it’ll be fine.

 

I did 3 oil changes so far on my PRIME at recommended 10K interval. Next oil change at 40K will be out of warranty. Although the engine may have a longer warranty? If I am going DIY, it is very likely I will only do the oil change once a year that means probably ~15K interval. With 60% EV ratio, that's still 9K miles on ICE, but I may just end up taking my car to a dealer for $39.99 oil and lube special at 10K interval.

I don't particularly enjoy crawling under a car lying on my driveway and getting oil and grease on my hands. I can work on my car only in good weather that means any time from November to April is probably out (too cold or ice and snow on ground) and July and Aug is also not desirable (too hot for me). I may try twice a year spring and fall oil changes to coincide with the tire changes, but that means I will do the oil changes at more like 9K and 6K alternate intervals. Hummm, Come to think of it, that may not be a bad idea.

I am not too worried about blown engine. That usually does not happen on my car (especially Japanese models) before the car becomes a rust bucket. Only one time did I have blown engine before the car rusted out... That was our last Dodge minivan at ~80K.

 

Hmm....
Lost Luggage Delivery....by vehicle.....

That's the cover story she was going with......

 

Have you ever had a major engine failure? I have. And guess what? I had oil in it. You are oversimplifying this. Yes, the engine should be fine with a 10,000 oil change interval. Yes, I am probably changing it too frequently. But no, it's not dumb to change it more frequently than recommended by the manufacturer.

BTW - I had a Toyota Sienna that had the oil sludge problem so I know that Toyota does make a mistake here & there.

 

I didn't mean for this thread to be so polarizing (like Prius styling)

Just a warning because I too belied in extending oil changes to suit synthetic oils.

The reality is automobile manufacturers are made up of mere mortals, some more greedy than others. If you have the means to dig around automobile company's you will see that there are strange decisions made by corporations. Usually the engineering department is not the culprit. Just because it is written in paper does not mean that it is a good idea.

My opinion was that 10K is too long. On the prime I would adjust that for %EV mode though. They should go to hours on these cars.

AG