He put in a lithium battery so oil quality shohdnlt matter because he has 60% better mpgs with the lion battery!!!
Hybrid engine oils are being made. Motul makes both 0W-20 and 0W-16 Hybrid full synthetic oils, and in the German meaning of synthetic. Heck I almost missed it but 0W-8 as well…
The motor is not a hybrid motor. It's just an internal combustion engine. You wouldn't need any special oil for it.
I was under the impression that these hybrid oils targeted hybrid vehicles or plug in hybrids. If I’m mistaken which vehicle engines are they targeting?
It's a gimick. They do target them. Because people think they are different. But the ICU in the Prius works the same way as a non hybrid engine. Minor differences for fuel economy, but they don't need special oil in them.
I'd buy a Gold Plug, http://www.goldplug.com You can monitor how Clean the oil actually runs.The Castrol Gold Bottle Extended Performance 5w30 ran the cleanest for me. Very Very Very few metal on the Gold Plug. I tried all the oils at the Box Stores and The Castrol [gold bottle]had the fewest metal on the Gold Plug.
I decided to peek at the SDS of my usual Mobil 1 EP to find similar chemical makeup. I do remember upon fresh oil change the engine always would engage smoother/run smoother. So it may well be placebo effect that I feel the car is running better because of the hybrid specific oil….
