She Likes to Drink-Should I Get Rid of Her?

What's the center stack?

If you mean the large display, that comes on the XLE and Limited versions.

I bought our 2019 as a Plus model and it has the small display and buttons and switches to control the climate.

But the Prime was a nice upgrade from a 2010 I spent 10 years in.

 

Age plays a part too.
How hard it was driven does too.

 

Rebuild the motor. Replace the rings, and/or valve guide seals, hone it out.
Maybe reseal the valves.
Prolong the battery and it should last a lot longer. All a lot less cost than a new car.

 

Maybe, maybe not.
When you are done with what you listed, you will still have an OLD car with other OLD parts.

 

That's what I thought when I saw that on the windshield. I think they fix up wrecked cars to resell them.

 

There is really no such thing as a remanufactured pack since OEM new parts are not available.
There are repaired packs, kits of new cells, or new packs only from Toyota. Anybody peddling a remanfactured pack is just selling a repaired pack that was repaired with used modu8les.

 

Dealers will be more ready to make sales later, but it's going to be on whatever they have too many of. That is not prius prime and is not likely to be rav4 prime. If the Australian launch was any example, the pluggy rav4 will have a premium over sticker for a while.

 

New battery cells, $1700.
Valve guide seals. ?? Probably less than $50?
If he does it himself, no labor charge.

Just cause it's old, doesn't mean it's not good.
It only has 135,000 miles.

 

Please relax, if you are burning a quart of oil every 1,500 miles that is only 6000 miles per gallon of oil. In 6000 miles you will burn over 120 gallons of gasoline (which is made from the same petroleum ). So you are burning 100 times more petroleum from the gasoline than oil. Unless this oil loss means your engine is positively going to fly apart any minute keep on driving the prius !
I am losing 1 quart every 700 miles and buy lots of mobile 1. I check oil every week and clean ERG every year and have 205,000 miles so far. Good luck to both of us!

 

I also vouch for the BG products. My 2010 at one point was burning oil at the same rate, 1qt / 1500 miles. I used these and it went down to maybe 1qt / 5000 miles. 158K miles currently on mine.

 

Maybe my post got missed earlier. In case it did, I'd just like to mention 1 quart of oil every 1500 miles isn't that much. As I mentioned earlier a brand new Honda can burn 1 quart every 1000 miles and that's considered normal. I'm pretty sure it's the same for a Toyota as well.

 

There are videos of how to remove/install the hybrid battery pack.
Same for the Prolong hybrid battery wiring harness. Neither is that difficult. They do take time though.
If you go slow, watch the videos and read the instructions, you can do it.
Valve guide seals aren't hard, but are more involved. Each piston must be at top dead center for removing
the springs or the valve will likely slip down inside the cylinder, which probably means pulling the head.
Which would be a lot more involved.
The only special tool you'd need would be the valve spring compression tool. I would guess less than $50.
You would have to price them from the auto parts store or ebay/amazon.
It will depend on your mechanical ability. If you are good at that, then you can do it.

And since you did the EGR cooler and system, and the manifold, then removing the battery pack and
replacing the cells, then reinstalling the pack, should be easy for you. If not "easy", then doable.
Again, speed is not needed, so watch the videos and go slow.

Someone recently took the pistons out of his Gen3 engine. I believe he was replacing the head gasket.
He showed photos of the pistons and rings. The rings were free and clean, they looked new to me.
I am not totally convinced that the rings clogging or failing are the cause of the oil usage. I believe the more
likely problem are the valve guide seals. Mercedes had that problem in the late 80's. I replaced a lot of seals!

 

This is my vote......except maybe for trying high mileage oil.
On the overall scale of oil usage, that is relatively low.
And any drastic measures might make it worse instead of better.

 

Oil is cheap. new cars or not, wait till consumption is 1 qt every 5oo miles or the main battery goes dead. You seem to check the oil regularly so you should be OK.

 

On the surface, that sounds like good advice.
BUT.....if all that oil is really going out the tailpipe, it won't take long to fry the CAT converter and then it won't pass "smog" test.
Not to mention all that oil you are spewing out onto the roads and into the air.

 

Once the oil is burned, it's a smoke. If you are spitting oil out the tail pipe, it's not being burned.
That would be a different problem.
Every car burns oil. Oil is sprayed/splashed on the cylinder wall from the oil ring.
If not, the top two rings would seize to the cylinder wall from the heat and two metal parts rubbing together.
Some just burn less....