Excessive Oil: *PLEASE* do report! Instructions from Toyota here

How many miles on your Prius?

 

You need another check, say in another 600 miles, to confirm.

 

178K

 

I am!

 

FYI: when Toyota offered to extend the repair window for the Camry, RAV4, Corolla... it was up up to 10 years/150K miles. So even if they did the same for the Prius (and that's a BIG if) you would be outside that window. So realistically, your options are to either rebuild the engine, or put in a used engine. If it were me, I wouldn't trust a used engine unless it was from a 2015+ -- it could very likely have the same problem, or develop the same problem.

 

yeah, someone is putting in a new engine, not me lol I think me & my prius might be getting a divorce soon.

 

OK, time to start documenting. My 2012 w/135K miles is using roughly a quart every 2500 miles, but I don't have exact numbers yet. First time it was noticed was at the 130K oil change, the dealer noted it was down *over* 2 quarts, but they didn't note how much. I've had it changed every 10K miles by a Toyota dealer, and that was the first time the dealer ever noted a loss of oil. In the last 5K, I added 1 quart, and had it changed at 135K, where it was down another quart, but again, the dealer didn't write down the exact amount. I've retrieved my service records from my toyota owner's account. I'm tempted to not add any oil, get it changed by the dealer at 140K, and have them write in the service record how much it's down, so I have hard numbers when calling national. In any case, I'll be keeping a close watch.

First 110K miles had an even mix of city/hwy driving, last 25K is skewed much more to highway driving due to a job change, so that's an unfortunate variable.

 

As Behzat C. would say: "Stop talking nonsense!".

Monitor it regularly, and top up at least by the time it's dropped halfway, and log how much you're needing to add. There is a test, involves putting security tape over all fill/drain points, but if you're not doing that, no point to letting it drop excessively, just stressing your engine.

 

No! There's a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) that's linked at the begining of this thread for this problem -- read it. It includes an oil consumption test. I had mine done last August. They top up the oil to the upper mark on the dipstick (I did this at home before I brought it to them so I knew it was done correctly). They put seals on your dipstick tube, oil drain plug, and oil filter to ensure they're not tampered with, then send you on your way to drive 1100 - 1300 miles. You bring it back after having driven the 1100 - 1300 miles, and they measure the amount of oil consumed. If you've burned more than 1 quart, your car failed the test. That's what you need for documentation. Simply being down 2 quarts is not sufficient.

 

Is there anyway to hook up a sort of IV bag of oil to automatically top off my oil?

 

I foresee more things going wrong with type setup than just checking your dipstick regularly and topping it off accordingly.

 

My oil leaves the engine at unpredictable times these days so one day my luck will run out. I wish I could find someone around here to rebuild it.

I'm going to have to try what's been suggested around here, EGR service & engine flush, but at almost 240k I'm going to say it's the rings giving up the black gold.

 

That's a great start, my man.

It's unfortunate that our gens ICE (internal combustion engine) is not bulletproof. We were sold the Toyota name but bought Mazda RX-8 engine reliability. This is where we are so let's make some lemonade.

I check my oil Everytime I put some dino-juice in the Pri. For me, it was easy because I was already doing it more frequently than most. That's what saved me from having to do an engine swap. I discovered my oil problems while on a two thousand mile road trip.

 

That sounds like a fun road trip hmm dino-juice. I wonder if that stuff would burn less than synthetic? I'm no mechanic, but 0-20 is like water anyway.

I do check it all the time now, but still I haven't figured out when it likes to burn more than usual. Seems like after an oil change it lasts for 2-3 weeks then cya.

I can't complain, this is the best car I ever owned. All the Chevy's I had before turned into rust buckets in need of repairs left and right.

 

My experience is that it burns significantly more oil at highway speeds than around town. Highway speeds around here are 75 - 80 mph. Others have noticed a reduction in oil consumption by reducing highway speed to 65 mph. The Prius is Mrs. TV's mode of transportation for work... and reducing highway speed is not something she's willing to consider.

 

Have you done the EGR and intake manifold clean too? That'll help.

 

Thanks for the tip, that would shed a lot of light on my situation. I put about 100 miles a day on it with 80% of that being at the highway speeds you mention. I would have thought doing that would use less oil.

 

Since the days of the model T, engines have used more oil when under heavy load.
As the rings wear, or stick, it becomes more noticeable.

 

On the off chance that part of the loss is from worn out seals, you might should consider using a somewhat thicker oil made for "high mileage" vehicles.
It might help some and certainly won't hurt.