Oil Burning :(

I think there is a direct correlation with hard driving and oil burning. As well as 10k mile oil changes and 0W-20 oil.

 

Is it just me....or is the prius dipstick challenging to read?
Mine only seems to vaguely show oil on one side....

 

It can be a challenge .

One way to do it is to check the oil in the morning after it has sat for a bit.

Or pull the dipstick then allow it to sit fr 5 minutes then try again.

Hope that helps.

 

Yeah...it's not that you can't see oil on the stick...problem is - one side says full.....flip it over and it's down a quart.....

 

That's weird. Can't be that much difference; should be no more than an eighth inch or so difference.

Maybe: remove the dipstick, and wait 5~10 minutes before reinserting and checking. That'll give oil in the guide tube time to drain down, might give a clearer reading.

 

ha...you're probably right Mendel....she always says I tend to exaggerate a bit

 

Between the two marks is 1.5 liters (1.6 quarts) IIRC. On third gen at least it's also 1.5", which makes for easy math, sort-of.

 

You can be gentle by paying attention to the Hybrid System Indicator (HSI) and trying to stay within the ECO area, most of the time. I'm not afraid to get into the PWR area if I need the acceleration, but most of the time you can easily stay within ECO.

 

Did you try putting in the dipstick upside down?

 

Am I doing it wrong, I check the oil before I start the car, the oil is all in the pan so the first time I pull the dipstick, the oil level is on the stick no smear. What will I gain if I wipe it and re insert it to take a reading?

 

Confirmation .

 

You can but with the scan gauge II you can see engine temp. I drive very gently until the motor warms up. You need the temp gauge to do this.

 

Ok never mind then. Third gen has a dipstick guide tube that tends to hold the oil.

 

Another reason to take easy at first is that it tries to power the wheels entirely with energy from the battery during the first minute. You can see that if you watch battery current on the ScanGauge, and hear it if you listen to the engine carefully.

 

I have a 2013 Prius with 231K miles. It is burning one quart every 1.5K miles. Unfortunately I put that many miles in a month. Is it time to get rid of it? Unfortunately I spent 4.3 grand on a brand new battery at the dealership at 186K miles.

 

Ugh, that is full retail.

I would just keep slamming in the quarts for a while, try to get your money's worth out of the battery at least. What weight are you using, try going up in viscocity, say to 5W30? You could also try a piston soak: take out all the spark plug, pour in a solvent package designed for this. Let it soak as long as practical, at least overnight. Turn the engine a few times (by hand?). Siphon out what's still above the cylinders, and drain/fill the oil.

I think Toyota might even make a solvent for this. Some folks might have specific suggestions, @mjoo, @Raytheeagle to name a couple.

 

I use BG Products EPR to flush the old oil before a change then add Extended Life MOA to the new oil to help keep it basic longer.

Our 2010 has 197 k miles on it and consumes a quart of oil every 5-6k miles or so. I top up as needed and use 0w-40 grade full synthetic oil. If I used 0w-20 like the manual suggests, I’d be burning a lot more.

Those are some things to try, but I wouldn’t give up on the car yet. I’d clean the egr circuit and add an oil catch can and see what you can get out of your Prius .

Good luck and keep us posted .

 

Since the 2zr-fxe engine has a known issue of poor oil ring drainage, if you want to fix the problem with inadequate oil drain holes in the piston oil control rings, look for other examples. This problem has been around for decades on older engine designs. Owners of other cars with the same defect have improved the oil burning. One of the solutions that can free up the rings is a piston soak.

It's surprising that modern day engines still have problems like the above. I guess it's a compromise in the engine design.

 

I would definitely go with a piston soak after all the reading I have done on here.
The longer you can leave said additive to work the better, 3 days plus and people say they are getting good results.
What additive to use....... Everyone has there own opinion, my local garage has suggested using brake fluid as an alternative to sea foam ect.......and I can see his point it eats through paint pretty quickly and doesn't seam to damage metallic parts.
Why do these engines burn oil again everyone has there own opinion, we know the oil rings gunk up and compression rings carbon up.
Some people using very expensive high quality oil changing every 3000 miles are having the same problems that Joe blogs is having who only changes his oil every other birthday so that rules out an oil problem.
Some only use top tier gas others supermarket fuel.. Same problem again.
The only thing I can think of that we all do different to other motorists is drive for economy, nobody thrashers a prius. You couldn't if you tryed, they simply don't rev up that high... 4000 odd RPM max and the engine is never under any kind of load as its always at peak efficiency or RPM for a given load.
My take on this is engine is never really stressed or rev'd hard and starts to carbon up the compression rings.
This causes the combustion to blow past the compression rings and maybe burn or soot up the oil rings as well as pressuring the crank case.
The PCV does its job of relieving the pressure by venting into intake manifold, but its not just gas its venting it oil vapour as well hence intake manifold always having a puddle of oil in them.
This gas is then burnt off(mostly) but what isn't ignited is Sent down the exhaust to get recirculated by the EGR which then clogs up from the oil mist which hasn't been burnt off.

My guess is keep the compression rings free to move about (piston soak unless a better solution exists) and we wouldn't have these other associated problems.......


Bloody hell that felt like a rant going on there

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Maybe I'm misreading this, you drive 15,000(1.5K) miles a DAY?
Or is it 1500 miles?
I average 550 miles a week. 3/4 of it is 60-65mph, with some 70mph, but rarely for more that a few miles.
I used about 3/4 of a quart of oil in 11,000 miles. I just turned 160,000 miles last week, or the week before?
I average 46-49mpg, I'm very happy with that!

Maybe I have a good engine. I've had no problems. Everything seems to work like it was designed to work.
Eventually something will happen, it happens to every car. But I'll handle it!