It has occurred to me that the Prime needs more of an ETI (or revolution counter) to determine oil change "intervals", or a lot of expensive synthetic oil is going to go down the drain unnecessarily. At present, I am racking up significant miles on my new blue steed, driving significantly more on longer distance trips (300+ miles); but shortly, I will transition to long stretches of local (EV - sans ICE) errand trips, with only occasional excursions. Toyota will dutifully rotate my tires and change my oil at the recommended 5,000 mile intervals (for tires, with LOF changes at every other (10,000 mile) service. But... after the free service period is over, and I have to buy the oil, I will attempt to estimate when the ICE has racked up the 10K interval. Am I being too OCD here?
IIRC, the manual says to change oil every 10k miles or six months. Probably something to do with degradation of the additives in the oil is my guess.
Right! I was going from memory and the gray cells ain't what they used to be. I checked and Gen 3 is also 10K or 12 months.
For what it's worth, I used Mobil 1 at my first 5k and paid for the first oil change. Just not sure if I'll continue doing it every 5k thereafter. Did that for the '04 Prius and lasted 300k and engine was going strong still, which is one rationale for changing it more often. I have been driving maybe 30-40% on EV, so perhaps not doing the oil change every 5k is justified, but just still seems like a long time to go without changes, even if I rack up the miles that fast.
ETI, LIF, ICE, LOF, OCD? Ugh, LOL! Anyway: Don't forget your power train warranty is 5 years, or 60,000 miles? Would being remiss on your oil changes void it? You're probably absolutely right in your premise, but weigh all the factors. And: the drained oil doesn't go down the drain these days.
