2010 burning oil badly at highway speeds

That’s around 160k miles, for USA readers.

FYI: the two marks on the dipstick represent (roughly) 1.5 liters.

the main change is the piston and rings were revised, at some VIN partway through 2014 model year, apparently with the aim of deducing oil consumption. @ChapmanF has more info on the piston/ring change VIN, hopefully will chime in.

swapping in a later VIN engine is a possibility, hopefully one with lower miles, but I suspect they’d be hard to find, pricey, and may have “other issues”.

Alternatives:

1. replace pistons/rings with updated versions.

2. replace “short block” with new; it’ll have revised pistons/rings.

3. Swap in a rebuilt engine.

4. swap in a low miles Gen 4 engine. This was an exciting option a few years back, but had proven problematic, mainly overheating issues, possibly something incompatible.


waiting in the wings is head gasket failure, which tends to manifest just around your mileage. Reading between the lines, you’ve not heard of this? My opinion, shared by a few others: the head gasket failures are due to carbon clogging of Toyotas newly implemented EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) system. Preventative measure is to clean the entire system, including EGR passages in intake manifold periodically, say every 80k kms. Head gasket failure usually starts with coolant leaking into cylinder one, manifests as cold-start shaking, due to coolant accumulation overnight.

more info in my signature; on a phone turn it landscape to see signatures.

 

The oil rings stick, thus the oil burning. Drive FAST, burn more oil.
The only REAL way to fix it is to replace the pistons and rings with the lastest ones.
But, you need to check the cylinder walls because they might be oval.
Short block is probably the better way to go, depending on the cost of replacing
the short block verses the whole enine with either new or remanufactured.

 

Editorial:

the main change is the piston and rings were revised, at some VIN partway through 2014 model year, apparently with the aim of reducing oil consumption.@rjparker has more info on the piston/ring change VIN, hopefully will chime in.

 

A 2010 has no chance of having the revised pistons and rings, only 2014 and newer based on the factory and their production change sequence number.

These are US vin numbers - they may not apply to European models.


I agree with the comments above, your rings are stuck and there is a very high chance a cylinder wall is scored. These blocks can’t be fixed if they are scored and realistically the best way to solve it for another 200,000 km is to replace the engine. A quality borescope inspection might verify the cylinder walls.

Borescope technique looking for a head gasket on a v6

You might find a recent low mile Prius+ engine in Europe as they sold that gen3 through 2020.

2023 Report

 

Try a piston soak -- google for more info.

Here is a Toyota cleaner you could soak with: Top Engine Cleaner