Oil consumption

Well you took it to Toyota every time... so wouldn't that make them responsible?

 

Yes and no. If they're conscientious they would check the oil level prior to the drain, and alert the owner, if they see it's dropped. Especially if it's dropped a lot.

But are they obligated to do anything more than drain and fill it? Perfect storm, for a car that's consuming oil: dealer changes oil, that's all, and owner rarely if ever checks level.

 

they are not responsible unless there was a problem while under warranty. it's almost 10 years old.

 

125k on our 2007 Prius. Purchased new, oil changed every 5k, exclusively synthetic oil. Car is burning a good amount of oil these days. Was hoping to go all EV is a few years. My used Leaf is a great town car having replaced my 98 Camry, but need a longer-range EV to go all electric. Feel like I could not sell it privately with this issue and Toyota is nowhere when it comes to EV's. Guess I'll keep adding oil and run the car until it dies.

 

Can you rough estimate the rate?

 

Dealer oil change service is a death sentence for your car.

 

One thing with that: you can get complacent, never check the the oil level. Dealership drains it into a large oil catch gizmo, doesn't see the (reduced) drained volume. So increasing consumption can go unnoticed.

 

I feel pretty fortunate. At 142k miles my 2008 is only burning one quart every 3k miles.

 

I bought an 05 with 170k miles on it, serviced at the dealer until 150k. Burns very little oil and runs really well.

My 2008 goes through some oil but I have a leak in the pan gasket. I have to change that out and see if oil is actually burning.

 

I filled to the top dot, ran it 500 miles. The attached image is the oil drop over that time.

 

Measuring the image on my screen, I get this in mm:



In second gen Owner's Manual, the distant between the two dimples is said to be 1.6 US quarts. Running a couple of ratio equations from that:

Your consumption in 500 miles is about 0.35 quart, and extrapolating, a quart would be consumed every 1437 miles.



Addendum: just to avoid TOTAL geekdom, say a quart every 1500 miles.

 

This photo was taken a few weeks before I changed the oil. Based on what I added the last 6 months I would say your estimate of a quart every 1500 miles is spot on.

Would this be considered excessive for a 07 Prius with 125K miles? Now that we've added a 2nd EV the Prius has become a spare car so it won't be driven more than a few thousand miles a year. Would it be worth trying BG109 on it?

 

I use EPR (PN 109) along woth extended life MOA and it works for us.

I had oil consumption around a quart every 4500 miles and it reduced it down to less than a quart for every 10 k miles.

But everyone’s results vary. I use it though successfully .