Oil Change

Many have used them, and there have been multiple reports of problems like overfilling (or worse), which the Prius is not very tolerant of.

Other than an initial courtesy change done by my dealer, I've done all of them myself on the Prius. It's fairly easy and I recommend it.

Search around a little bit here and you'll find the reports. See John1701a's site for lots of useful Prius information, including a nice description with pics of a DIY oil change.

 

I've taken mine to Jiffy Lube a couple of times and, while I have had no problems per se, their Signature Service Oil Change is a joke. They have a list of stuff they supposedly check or do but you can watch them in the bay and at least half of it doesn't get checked. When you go to pay they always run down the list of the things they checked and I like to stop them when they get to the air pressure. "oh, was my tire pressure ok". They tell me they confirmed my tire pressure was 32-32 psi and didn't need adjustment. I really should call them out knowing damn well my tire pressure is nowhere close to that but I just smile and let them continue to lie to me about topping off my fluids and visually inspecting my belts.

 

I took my Prius to a local shop after winning a free lube at a hardware store. I made sure they had the correct oil change info. As a courtesy they filled my tires to 40 and 42 lbs EXCEPT when I got home and double checked the pressure it was 40# on the right side of the car and 42 on the left. My advice, trust no one.

 

I go to a tire/oil change place. I buy four quarts of 5W-30 oil, give them to the guy changing the oil and ask him to pour in 3.5 quarts and give me the remaining half quart to take home. Next time I bring the half quart and pay for three quarts. Never had problems with this procedure.

 

The fundamental flaw in the question is the assumption that if any one given site has a good, honest, knowledgeable technician at an honest shop replacing someone else's oil, that some completely different site has a person of the same capability doing the same job for you. The service center you use could have "Crash the Car Destroyer" as the technician. Even longstanding Toyota dealers have rare, horrible cases of oil changes being faulty....yet it is not realistic to advise avoiding the dealer. It's the person doing the change, not the label over the service center that matters.

Recommend you focus you question locally to specific sites and people. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS double check the dipstick afterwards.