My car has over 320,000 miles on it. Other than the wheel-bearing replacement (I believe its first), the last 100,000 miles I've driven have had ZERO repairs (220K-320K) other than regular oil-changes. However my car is (correction: has been) burning oil. I am used to the smell but I had a passenger who complained about the noxious smell! to me today ..."Her: How can you stand it? Me: Stand what?" I usually go through a quart every 800-1000 miles for the past at least 30K miles. I've tried looking for the cause but haven't been able to locate it so I'm guessing its a seal deep in the engine (not the valve cover gasket nor PCV valve) not worth trying to locate. Is there someplace that is really out of the ordinary for a leak and worth fixing on a Prius with over 300K miles?
Yknow it weird how men don't think burning-oil is necessarily a bad smell but heavy effeminate perfume is, whereas the opposite occurs with women. Personally, I like that smell when you crossover from the waiting room of a mechanics shop to the garage area.
A sneaky place where they burn oil? Like "under the hood?" It is a known characteristic of that engine once it is mostly worn out. I couldn't say whether it's the rings or the valve guides or both.
Typically, carbon deposits build up in the piston ring grooves and restrict movement of the oil control rings. That allows more oil to get by (& be consumed) which increases the carbon build up. Could also be valve guides or seals, but it's going to be rings as well. If the problem has been there awhile, then expect the cylinder bores to have wear and damage from the stuck rings. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
it's internally burning oil due to piston rings and you can't smell this in the cabin. The one you can smell is from the leaking oil outside of your engine. The valve cover is known to leak and you can visually inspect this easily. One of my older Priuses got a bad leak from the valve cover when I replaced it with an aftermarket gasket, I could see smoke from the burning oil behind the engine. The leak goes all the way down to the exhaust manifold area. The other leak is the pcv hose going into your throttle body, you'll notice this as your throttle body gets grimy with oil. Replace or clean pcv is the fix.
