Low Engine Oil Pressure Light

Your engine oil is so low your aggressive driving is sloshing around the remaining low oil and the oil pump sump intake is going dry.
No oil to suck into pump. When that happens the oil pressure goes to zero and throws that nag. Usually in a G2 1.5 that will damage the engine resulting in piston oil ring scuffing and then start to seemingly eat oil.
Not sure if the Gen3 motors are any better off with oil loss.

My I make some assumptions?
You have the car serviced at the dealer and never ever check your own oil.

 

yep.

 

You are kidding, right? There are hundreds of posts on this, granted mostly in gen 2 (matter of miles).

 

I assumed, as your scenario is becoming quite ordinary. Dealer serviced means the owner leaves it all up to the dealer.
Problem with that is the oil change guy never checks the oil BEFORE he dumps it and unless you check the oil yourself periodically you'll never know your car is consuming oil or if the dealer is overfilling it (which I can garantee he is) or maybe even if he under filled it and I'm 2 quarts low. And it damages my motor. Dealer maintenance is the worst.

You have to understand at the dealer the guy changing the oil is not a certified mechanic. He's a guy hired to do oil changes. There not going to pay a ASE trained mechanic to change oil. Around here at my big high end dealer that guy does not even speak English. He cares not about your expensive car. And the worst part is the oil they use is awful. Its vat oil. Oil I wouldn't use in my lawn mower. So that process has to be watched carefully as they will try real hard to mess up your car.

Its a very weird trend we see here. The poster will go through the trouble of posting about what is obviously referring to an engine oil issue and never even open the hood and look at the oil level first before going through the trouble of posting about it. We see this alot.

The answer to your question is undoubtedly if your car wasn't eating oil before it sure will now. You will have to check the oil at least once a week now. If you run it low again it will be new motor time.

 

Excellent!

 

I also have oil burning on my 2010. I have to add a quart at about 3500 miles. Then change at 5000.

Initially dealer serviced but stopped because you can't tell what oil the dealer gives you. You can pay for synthetic oil but really have no idea what is in your engine

 

After the website upgrade I find the search function on PC to almost be useless. Instead I use Google and search for what I'm looking for and add priuschat at the end. That almost always works! I have over 170k miles on my Gen II, and I have to add oil every now and then. I check my oil about every two to three weeks and have to add about 1/2 a quart. Growing up I've always been told with high mileage engines having to add oil is normal.

 

Cripes! What kind of dealerships are you people going to?

My 2010 was dealer-serviced from Day 1 until it was traded in with 106,000 miles in 57 months. Never burned oil. Never needed to add any between 5k oil changes. Blackstone Oil analyses (plural) verified everything was good and, indeed, the dealer was putting in what I was paying for. I've never had an overfill or underfill concern.

I intent to treat my 2014 in the same manner.

 

The analysis can tell what oil the dealer put in? How does it do that?

 

The analysis will determine factors such as viscosity breakdown and, by comparing those against known values, will determine whether the sample is performing as you would expect of a synthetic vs. conventional.

 

But your known value is the same oil since day 1, which is from the dealer.

 

You tell the oil analysis place what kind of oil (you believe to be) in the engine. They can compare your results against the known values for that particular oil description.

 

It means either:

1. Your car is consuming oil.
2. The dealership didn't put in enough at the last change, say lost count of the bottles.

You've be been dragged over the coals enough, but anyway: never to late to start checking the oil level. Right after an oil change is a very opportune time, then maybe every couple of weeks. Hopefully no serious damage done to the engine.

Also, just looking at your icon: be sure to check the oil on decently level ground. In my experience the Prius dipstick is very prone to oil smearing along an edge. Check it several times, wiping off each time, and look for the abrupt stop. One side is often clearer than the other.

 

The results can't be the same if you are comparing oil that came out of a 20 year old Ford V8 engine vs oil that came out of a new 2013 1.5 liter 4. How is that measured?

 

This is dead simple.

You tell the oil analysis place that the sample you've sent in is Toyota's full synthetic 0W20 oil and the sample has 5,000 miles of use on it as well as how many total miles are on your engine at the time of the sampling. I should also mention you've informed the analysis place the year, make, model, and - if applicable - engine size of your vehicle.

Blackstone then compares your results against known results for Toyota's full synthetic 0W20 oil run for 5,000 miles in the same engine to determine if something is out of line or not. If you've submitted 5W40 conventional and tell them it's 0W20, it's going to get flagged as the oil won't have performed as it was expected to.

Furthermore, I don't remember mentioning anything about a 20-year old Ford V8 and the engine in a 2013 Prius is a 1.8 liter.

 

Thanks for the information. I don't want to throw off this thread, just wanted to see how the oil analysis works....I thought they just measure metals and such in your oil.