My wayward nephew is not mechanically inclined and can't get motivated to check his oil level periodically. Today I added 2 quarts to bring the dip stick to the top mark. The engine is making a clicking sound after the oil was added. I believe this 2006 is one of those that developed high oil consumption after 200k odometer miles. Is this car worth saving? 225k on the odometer. No GPS mapping option in the radio. Minor road rash on the body. New factory-supplied traction battery about 75k miles ago. What further low-effort diagnosing effort should I make before deciding to scrap the vehicle? I'm assuming that a new head (the least expensive explanation for the clicking sound) would be a $1200 project. It wasn't his upbringing. His dad (my brother) checks his own vehicle's oil level weekly.
So now that you've put the oil in have you put any miles on the car.? I'd have to hear or we'd have to hear the noise I don't know about Jen twos and high oil consumption necessarily after 200,000 miles all of mine have had at least 50,000 above that and I got one heading into the 400,000 right now so I'm not sure about that I know my engine . And a 10,000 mile oil change which is what they get at this mileage uses maybe two quarts and that 10,000 and that 10,000 comes in 90 to 120 days usually it's driven a lot hence the reason it's probably lasted and will last so long no sitting
I wouldn't get ahead of myself with planning for engine failure just because the car was two quarts low. You mention nothing about low oil pressure warning lights.
Luckily for you, there is still value in a Prius with issues. In terms of the engine noise. I would try to isolate the issue. If the issues is due to low oil, definitely not good. If you think it's the top end, remove the valve cover and see if you can hear the noise up there.
I have several cars and I am not the most organized. One of my oil changes was missed and I went between 7 and 10,000 miles. The oil was low and I felt horrible that I let it go. Well that was years ago and that car is still ticking. << ( yeah.. i did that on purpose.) Car still drives fine except for what sounds like engine pinging, but it's hard to reproduce and seldom happens. Noises can be a number of things. I thought that same Prius was near death when I had what sounded like a loud chain noise. It turned out to be the water pump. Still don't understand that, but I isolated it, and fixed it and that noise has never been back. Keep digging into the source. Run the prius in maintenance mode and use something like a hose to isolate where the noise is coming from. No oil pressure warnings is a good sign that you might be OK.
I'd guess it has a decent amount of life left. I see you are in Indianapolis, if you decide to let it go check with me I may be interested.
Without hearing the noise, I can't give any meaningful advice about it. Depending on what the noise actually is, there might be no reason to not just keep running it. That said, any car can be killed by lack of maintenance. If it uses oil and is allowed to run too low, then it will die that much quicker. Usually, if the operator of a car is forced to pay out of pocket for maintenance (or the results of not doing so), they learn responsibility- eventually. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Not scrap, probably just needs some TLC. My first thought is a hydraulic lifter. Edit: After a bit of reading on priuschat, the Gen2 doesn't have hydraulic lifters. Valve lifter ticking | PriusChat
