My gen 3 Prius (2011 with about 140k miles) is running great and I'd like that to continue. I have a mechanic who I just recently started using; he requires me to provide oil and filter if I want an oil change. I have been putting in full synthetic oil and getting an oil change at 7k to 10k mile intervals. Wanting to buy oil on Amazon (it's full synthetic 0w20 and it's cheap). I figured I'd buy a filter there too. The Fram Ultraguard Synthetic filter seems suitable to me. It claims to be good for 6k to 10k mile oil change interval. Do y'all have an opinion about the filter? The OEM filter appears to $3 or $4 less (that doesn't matter to me too much) and doesn't say whether it's suitable for 10k miles.
0w20 is almost a little bit on the thin side for 140k miles.... the ultraguard (xg10358) is pretty much the best filter you can buy; not cheap, but you get what you pay for /
Have you cleaned the Exhaust Gas Recirculation circuit and intake manifold? This is just my axe to grind, take it or leave it: I started getting dismayed by the myriad motor oil empties I was producing, talked to the service manager of my nearby dealership, and now what I do is go there every so often, with a 10 liter No-Spill gas cannister, getting it filled with bulk Toyota 0W20 synth (and sometimes 5W20 conventional, for a PIlot) . Currently they're charging me $4.95 CDN per liter for the OW20. I have a similar 5 liter container: I put a large funnel in that, and that's my drained oil catcher. After an oil change I walk that down a trail to a nearby Mr Lube location: they have a large tank for waste oil. Pour in the oil and head for home: zero used-oil bottles added to the recycle stream (or straight to landfill...). It's one thing to be picking up all those single-use motor oil bottles locally, even more depressing to buying them in small lots, flying them across the nation via Amazon. I'd stick with the stock filter.
We live in a lazy and disposable society here in America, they would say it takes too much time and energy to follow your oil purchase method. I do admire your method, if redline oil was readily available at dealer in dispensable barrels, I’d follow suit.
Business model something like the bottled water dispenser at the supermarket? Put your bulk oil container in (maybe a standardized container from the store, that you put a deposit on?), enter the quarts/liters, and away you go. Might be good to have a bar code on the container that it can scan, which indicates the capacity, so it it'll balk if you ask for more quarts than it's capacity.
