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How often do you change your oil?

Discussion in 'Prius c Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by priusmatty, Aug 29, 2016.

  1. AtkinsonCycle

    AtkinsonCycle Junior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2016
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    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius c
    Model:
    Two
    Hello! This is an old thread, but I wanted to share what I do. I use the Trip A for oil change mileage record keeping. So, every time I change my oil, I reset Trip A. When I think I am getting close to 5K miles, I change the display to the INFO screen and select Trip A. There, I can see how many miles I have traveled on Trip A on electric. Looking at the INFO screen on Trip A, I just subtract the EV miles from the total and then I have a very accurate mileage for what the internal combustion motor has run. Generally, I see anywhere from 800 to over 1K miles per oil change from the electric motor. It varies depending on weather conditions and the amount of highway / city driving. But long answer even longer, yes I change it at 5k miles, I use 00-20W synthetic. I do a couple of things that people may think differently about. I prefill the oil filter before I put the new one on. I fill it, allowing the level to settle and refill several times, and then install it on the car. I figure this way, the engine bearings don't starve without oil pressure and flow for the time it takes to fill the oil filter. I also take some carb and choke cleaner and spray just a little down the dipstick tube. I noticed some white-ish foamy stuff (just a tiny bit) on the dipstick and wanted to clean it out. It is from the heat up cycles and moisture forming steam. It's completely normal. I know if an engine has a coolant sealing problem (head gasket, etc.) and coolant enters the oil, frothy white foam can form. This was no where near anything like that - it was hardly noticeable, but I wanted to clean it out. With the drain plug out, I figured why not clean the tube. Once I sprayed the tube out, I took a little fresh oil left over from the last oil change and poured it into the engine and let it drain out - kind of like a rinse to make sure any carb cleaner gets flushed out. Yeah, it's probably a little over the top, but I have almost 200,000 miles on the car with no real issues - just normal maintenance. It can be hard to see the level on the dipstick, like Mendel mentioned. I use a trick my grandpa taught me a long time ago. If you have a good, absorbent material - like a lint free paper towel, coffee filter, or a tight knit cloth, after the engine has been started and run long enough to circulate the oil then shut down, wipe the dipstick off and put it back in and wait - like Mendel suggests. Then take the dipstick out, place the tip on the material of choice and try to keep it fixed to the material. The idea is to keep the material and the dipstick locked in position to each other, lay the dipstick down on the material and bring it back over - keeping the dipstick and material in the same position in reference to each other. The material will leave a wet mark that can easily be seen. If you manage to keep the stick and material referenced to each other, it will leave a witness mark that you can line up with the dipstick to see the level. Ok, well I hope this helps someone! Thanks for reading this.
     
    mayfly likes this.