Oil Consumption

I have read that, and I'm not sure where that came from, except to ensure the car was not over filled, maybe. definitely a bad practice to overfill by anything significant.

1/3 down is roughly 0.5 qt and that's the lowest I like to go.

You have the added advantage of the additional information from your used oil analysis to provide further comfort in your situation..

 

I think also the intent was to have the crankshaft dipping into the oil reservoir sllghtly less, maybe improving mpg?

 

Pretty good trade off, screw the bottom end to get a couple extra MPG. lol.

 

Oh c'mon, a quarter inch down and the engine blows up?

 

Yes many people recommended it on this site back when I bought my 07 new but the G2 platform was fairly new then with no reports of oil loss or motors blowing up. I always scratched my head on that one though and never followed that advice. People actually followed that advice I bet. Run your car low on oil and get a .002% more out of a gallon of gas.

People were crazy then trying to get the most mileage and were trying all kinds of tricks but mostly just driving everyone on the road nuts driving slow everywhere. I never had the luxury of that because in the Tampa area if your not driving fast your going to get smashed into.

But I guess someone measured the tiniest better mileage if the oil was low because the crank journal was not splashing oil that deep in the pan like it should have.

 

Toyota did put minimum line there. Do you actually think that there would be any real difference in engine life if level is kept at max line or half way between max and min? Or even at 1/3 point?

Only splash lubricated engines rely on engine oil being splash around to lubricate them. Prius engine or almost any other remotely modern engine has a pump that sucks oil from the bottom of the oil pan. So as long as there’s enough (which can’t be more than minimum line) it should be fine.

Maybe more oil will slash around a bit more and lubricate cylinder walls a bit more. But more oil on the cylinder walls isn’t necessary better as it can increase oil consumption which can cause piston deposits and those can cause oil consumption.

 

Update:

I posted on the last page about a 2008 Prius I had just gotten. When I picked the car up, it had a fresh oil change will full synthetic done. After a month and 3000 miles (mostly highway- engine running), I'm here to report slight oil consumption:

1,500 miles into the oil change (June 3, 2017):



3,000 miles into the oil change (June 27, 2017):



Probably 1/3rd of a quart burned over 3k miles. Not good by my standards (if you look at my previous history in my last post, none of my previous cars burned any amount of oil that would change the level on the dipstick) but within normal limits presumably (from what I've read on this board). All internal combustion engines consume some oil during operation. Pair that with the fact that mine was pretty overfilled and 1/3rd of a quart is pretty reasonable.

I'll keep an eye on it, though I expect the problem to get much worse over time.

 

Don't be too pessimistic, lol.

I'd concur, it's maybe 0.3~0.4 US quart consumed just measuring the original (somewhat overfilled) dipstick on my screen: the distance between the pips, how much it was overfilled, and considering the distance between the pips represents 1.6 US quarts.

But that's not uncommon oil consumption, for a car with that mileage. It's not great, not terrible: just check frequently.

 

The overfill might have contributed to the consumption too: maybe the PCV valve started sucking some up?? Spec is 4.5 quarts with oil filter changed, sounds like someone put 5.0.

 

It also doesn't help that its been hotter than hell here, and every time I'm in bumper to bumper traffic (w/ the A/C running) the engine turns on and off with every press of the gas and brake respectively. Over the 10.5 km backup (takes about an hour to get through it) you can imagine how many times the engine had to fire back up, only to shut off immediately after. Rinse and repeat (Done this traffic jam 4 or 5 times now since I got the car)

Also if I go wide open throttle and the engine spins up I can smell strong burning in the cabin. I usually don't drive it like I stole it but vacation traffic (i live near the coast) seems to really clog the place up.

Even though it'll really plunge the MPG, I wish there was some way to keep the engine running during that traffic. The constant on/off must really be wearing the thing out.

 

You can just press the brake and gas at the same time to keep the engine running. Just make sure to press the brake pedal hard enough to not go forward! This will force charge the hybrid battery (maybe better not to force charge it to more than 7 bars).

On curtain conditions I have used that method to stop engine from constantly starting and shutting down with no effect on fuel economy. But I have only force charged it a bit because if you keep your AC off battery draw is small when you’re going very slowly.

 

The second generation Prius specs 3.9 qts of oil.

 

Ah woops.

 

Your photos show that the car was overfilled, and if that was my car I would have drained off that 0.3-0.4 qt excess.

You will probably find that most of that has been sucked into the throttle body (TB) via the PCV valve and is now sitting pooled on the floor of the TB. Some of that is then sucked into the combustion chamber and burned off that way. In reality your car is maybe burning very little oil. See what happens on the dipstick over the next 3,000 mi now that the oil is at the correct level. I would check the TB and mop up any pooled oil then give the TB a good clean.

In future, make sure that whoever is doing your oil changes does not overfill it, and if they do, insist they remove the excess – and ensure you get charged for the correct amount, not the excess overfilled.

 

Thanks for the reply.

I've had the car for about a month. Service history I was given suggests the oil changes were always done at Toyota dealerships. I've always done the work needed on my own cars, and plan on doing it on the Prius as well.

Overfilling the engine with oil can be as catastrophic as underfilling it.

Great advice, thanks again.

 

Good plan. Prius is easy to work on for basic maintenance.

 

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