Burning oil at same rate regardless of oil thickness --- What does it tell us?

Sell is unless you are ready to replace the engine, and other big items to come in short order. There is a point in the life of any vehicle where it becomes a money pit. 200K miles on any car is doing good.

 

Wish you luck.

 

$1500 for a used engine installed is a fair price I believe. The question is what else will break during the next 100K. Only time will tell. You might get lucky and everything else hold together. Or the transaxle may fail or another high dollar part on the Prius.

We all know that used cars are that, used. All used cars at some point or another need some sort of repair to get it going again. As stated above, at a certain point the car will become a money pit.

With luck, you may never reach that point, but it is inevitable. Also, buying a new car does not guarantee you no problems. All it does is give you a warranty in case a covered item breaks. How many of us have had to take a new car in for warranty work? If you think about that for a few minutes you will then agree that even new is not bulletproof. Generally a new car is better, but one has to remember that once you drive it off the lot, it is then a "used car".

Allen, I would suggest you look at your budget. Then decide whether a newer and or different car might be in order for you. If not, then do the repair and go from there. If it is in the budget, then pull the trigger and get something newer. I believe the best buy is to get a late model "used" car with low mileage. Those usually come with a factory warranty and generally have all the bugs worked out of them. Of course their is NO guarantee they will be problem free. You never know how the previous owner/operator of the car drove it, treated it and took care of it.

Best of luck to you.

 

No expert here, but the general consensus is the oil rings tend to wear out, plus some seem to think that the valve guides develop leaks over time. Oil usage is nothing new in the ICE. It has been going on since the ICE was invented a long time ago.

By the time you spend the money it would take to rebuild the engine to eliminate the oil burning, you would probably end up spending as much or not more than the $1500 you mentioned earlier.

FWIW, I think the weather has more to do with the lower MPG than anything else including oil usage. This year has been colder than normal. With that said it is expected that the MPG will drop more than usual.

 

Based on your stated record of oil usage to miles, my best guess sitting in front of this monitor is the motor is just worn out. There can be other causes but this likely is what is going on. Either way, do what ya gota do.

 

I know you have said there are no oil patches on the ground but at that leakage rate you may not be leaking while the engine is off and the car stationary. I have a 1987 Camry my daughter drives, which is leaking oil( The 3SFE motor is very prone to developing leaks as the silicon rubber gaskets shrink.) I.e. you look under and there are streaks of windswept oil on the body but none dripping off while stationary. Her oil loss is greater than yours.

Are you blowing smoke? Does the exhaust smell smoky? Check very carefully that it is not a leak. Some times cars can pull a lot of oil through the crank case breather too.

 

Your oil control ring is past saving. Cylinder walls probably scuffed up pretty good. At 150K that's a very good run. But soon may consume to much oil.

I see many II engines on eBay quite reasonable. Hundreds of them. Lots of wrecks. Most are $500.
$200 for FOB. And $700 labor so $1500 sounds right on the money.

Use Paypal and no worries.

 

AllenZ

Although many of those who've responded to your post are offering what they believe is the cause of the excessive oil consumption, it really doesn't matter now why or how. Your car has it and it's not going to go away no matter what you try now.

Your best option, IMHO, is to replace the engine with one from a junk yard. That is if you intend to keep driving it for another 100K miles. I wouldn't sell it after the repair. That doesn't make much sense. You might not get back what you put into it and why should someone else get the benefit of the replacement.

I believe you could sell it as is for $3500 and I'm sure someone (probably a mechanic) would swap out or rebuild the engine and drive it or sell it cheap to a friend or family member.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

...I would try a couple things like M1 High Mileage Formula supposed to reduce oil losses. Also the expensive Redline synthetic I would possibly give a try to see if it loosens some deposits.

 

In my opinion, here are your options listed in decreasing order of $$$/effort/effectiveness

Engine replacement
Rebuild engine or re-ring pistons
Piston Soak
Various "Mechanic in a Can" solutions - Auto-RX, Kreen, Marvel Mystery Oil, Motor Honey...
Thicker Oil, High Mileage Oil...

You might research Piston Soak which involves squirting a small amount of solvent through the spark plug holes to directly contact the rings with a full concentration of Marvel Mystery Oil, Kreen or whatever to try to free the compression and oil control rings

Make sure you don't start the car with too much liquid in the combustion chamber to avoid Hydro-Lock and engine damage

The piston soak seems to be a good balance between effort and results before mechanically tearing into the engine - particularly if you need to replace your spark plugs or PCV anyways

 

Toyota has had issues with alot of there motors with the oil return holes in the ring lands clogging. Sometimes
a kreen treatment will help but after you have 150,000 the motor has seen its best days anyway. Clogging has alot to do with how well the motor has been treated oil quality wise I would imagine.

I would imagine a motor spending its life on M1 or better and a decent oci of 5-8K would not suffer from this issue.
Somethings either gunking it up or poor lubrication.

Lets face it dyno oil is not happy when really heated up. It turns a burnt brown and attaches itself to the metal and if not changed out regularly gets quite nasty. What you see on the dipstick has little to do with whats really happening in a dino motor.

M1 and or better has no issue with very hot engine. I have been under the valve covers of dino life motors and m1 life motors (usually mine) and there's no comparison. You truly get what you pay for.

 

I think it is reasonable to leave the engine as-is until you start to see visible exhaust emissions being produced.

Another concern is what is happening to your catalytic converter given all of the engine oil being burnt up, although at 180K miles that is also at or near end-of-life regardless.

 

That is an assumption I would not make. A seasoned competent Mechanic with the proper Tech, Tooling and Reference material would be considered minimum. Specific experience is preferred and will yield best results for quality, time and ability to deal with abnormal situations as they occur.