Preventative Maintenance for Oil Burning 2nd Prius

Good to see the OCI is something sensible.

 

If you consider EV percentage though, maybe not.

I'm at ~67% EV, so the oil only has about 3300 miles on it.

But it is what it is .

 

Just curious, how often are you changing the oil? Every six months since you're not running up engine miles? If you're going with longer intervals are you using BG MOA?

 

Every 10 k miles, like the manual says to.

I put about 23k miles on a year, so it's close to 6 months by coincidence.

Still using EPR and MOA.

 

Thanks. Not that I'm planning on getting a new prius anytime soon, but I was wondering if I did get a new one maybe I should be safe and do 5K / six month oil changes. Or use MOA and do 10K / yearly. Food for thought.

 

You are free to do what you want, but on a vehicle that I get 67% EV out of, 10k doesn't seem too bad.

Although on my next ride I don't think I'll have to worry about oil changes.

So one less thing.

 

Hopefully, me too.

 

I'm saving my pennies to make it a reality.

The prize is a Rivian R1T.

Several years down the road once all the bugs are worked out .

 

Safest bet, especially with regular hybrid version, is use the extreme service or whatever it's called: 6 months or 5K miles. That is the regular interval for 3rd gen in Canada, FWIW. 10K vs 5K, depending on which side of the 49th parallel you happen to be? That's a big difference. I doubt the engineers felt good when they signed off on the longer interval, sales department drove that decision.

 

In regards to the newer Prius Primes though, I have to wonder about oxidation of the oil for those waiting until they hit 10K miles. Especially this year when most of us drove a lot less. If I had one I might would do 5K / six month intervals anyway. I just wonder if my engine would be in better shape had the previous owner been better about their oil changes; I can only guess but based on the service record I saw, there were a couple large gaps of time.

 

There is no need to wonder. The results of people's used oil analysis that they have made public here does not show any such concerns. They show that the oil is still good and could easily go for another 5,000 - 10,000 miles. One guy (using good quality long-life synthetic oil) was doing 25,000-mile OCI's plus sending off a sample of his oil after each oil change and those analyses showed no problem and the oil could go further if necessary.

My car has had 15,000 km OCI since birth and is at 200,000 km and is running fine using very little (if any significant oil) over the interval. 15,000 km OCI is the standard OCI recommended by Toyota in NZ.

I am not trying to make anyone go against Toyota USA's recommended OCI of 5,000 miles, but I do make the point that there is no need to worry about 5,000 vs 10,000 miles.

YMMV.

15,000 km = 9320 miles
200,000 km = 124,275 mile

 

Beautiful babieh!

 

I didn't know Prius has two PCV valves. I only changed one on the top near the cowl. Would you mind pointing location of both PCV?

Also, when I installed a cheap one from Amazon, it didn't really catch much. Actual water separator from Harbor Freight caught more oil/water that the actual Oil catch can. But that Water separator did not last much as its not meant for hot gases.

 

Not familiar with second gen, but the repair manual indicates one PCV valve, as far as I can see:

 

neither did I. Keen to know more.

 

I'm not sure if I hear this right. The guy on the video was saying the line going back to the intake is the "left" outlet (facing he front of the catch can).. Did he get that right? isn't the suction (from valve cover/pcv) free flow goes to the left side is suppose to the inlet, the residue travels passing the large strainer, down to the bottom of container leaving all the residue, then passing back to the large strainer, then to the "right" outlet passing through the "brass filter" as final strain then pipe its way to the intake manifold....