How often do you change your oil?

i love a renegade.

 

Resurrecting an old thread!

I’m reading the owners manual and it mentioned ‘oil consumption’ and it got me to thinking...

Do we need to top-off the oil in-between the 5,000 mile oil changes?*

* assuming the car has no leaks.

It mentions checking the engine oil every time we fill up at the pump.

 

Yes. Absolutely yes!

If your car consumes oil then you have to keep adding it back, otherwise you'll run low and kill the engine. If you're using under 1L per 5k miles then you probably don't need to top off, however it's not uncommon for higher mileage Prius have consumption up around 1L per 2k miles or even more. So definitely check your oil regularly, especially with a 10+ year old car.

 

Only check the oil if you want to keep the engine. Only top it off when low (or kind of low) if you still want to keep the engine.

 

Thank you two!

 

Just paraphrasing what my dentist told me.

 

If your not invested in the oil level your not invested in the cars health.
Many high mileage Prius begin consuming oil so if you take it to the dealer
For oil changes they don’t check it before dumping it so you will never know your Driving around with very little oil in the engine this exacerbates the oil loss issue till one day while driving the oil light comes on because the oil pan is empty. See this a lot here.
Too late usually engine damage ensues. Check engine oil level first thing before starting the car. Letting it sit over night let’s all the oil drip back into pan. You will see true oil level. If u pull into gas station and check it will show Half a quart low.
Set the Trip B monitor to 0 after oil change to clock miles on that oil change.

 

how often to change 2005 gen 2 Prius oil and what kind of oil should I use? 286476km(I'm from Europe and the car is originally from the Netherlands, I just bought it a month ago)/178008 miles. it's gas/electric/LPG so IDK if it changes anything and is used for taxi (uber and other platforms) so only driven in the city (traffic jams/traffic/red lights)

 

North American spec for 2nd gen is 5W30 oil, every 6 months or 5000 miles, whichever comes first. Those are sensible intervals I think; the 10,000 miles or 12 months (3rd and 4th gen US) is “less sensible”, my 2 cents.

 

any 5w30 will do or does it need to be a certain specification?

 

I ran 5-30 in mine which for this oil is actually a 40 weight oil at operating temp.

Engine loved it. It stopped the minor oil eating it was doing,
Redline 5-30 has an excellent ZDDP pack in it.
4 quarts with new filter.

Every 5,000 miles.

 

Change oil at 5k or six months whichever comes first; is cheap insurance to keep engine running. As cheap as $30 at dealers or oil and filter. YMMV

 

Page 287 of Owner's Manual:



If manual is missing you can download pdf. One source is Toyota Tech Info website, in the "manuals" tab.

FWIW, with my 3rd gen I've stuck with Toyota synthetic.

 

I started the life of my 2009 Prius changing every 5k miles. Several years ago, I was reading about how today's oils you can stretch that distance with longer OCI. I ran about 4 or 5 to around 12k miles with good oil.
However, I'm now noticing some varnish around the oil fill port and it is starting to consume about 1 quart every few thousand miles (not too bad). The car has 183k on the odometer.
So, I've recently decided to go back to 5k mile OCI with synthetic oil.

 

Varnish=Dino oil=Worn cylinder bore=Scuffed or coked oil rings=Little oil eating monster.