Preventative Maintenance for Oil Burning 2nd Prius

1. At an odometer reading of 150K miles, your engine is doing great if it consumes oil at the rate of only 1/4 qt to 1/2 qt after 1,400 miles.
2. You are very wise to check the oil at 1,000 mile intervals, and if you replenish the oil level as necessary, then what is the problem? It is not a reasonable expectation to drive an old car with 150K miles logged on the odometer, over a 5,000 mile interval without once checking the engine oil level.
3. It is normal for hydrocarbons to be deposited in the intake manifold below the PCV hoses. Some of it may come from oil traveling through the PCV hoses and some of it may come from unburnt gasoline vapor which rises back up from the intake valves since the Atkinson engine cycle has the intake valve partially open as the compression stroke commences.
4. You don't have to worry about the catalytic converter fouling based upon the oil consumption rate that you described. If you were consuming 2 quarts per 1,400 miles then you would have good reason to be concerned.
5. The small amount of oil collected in the oil catch can photo after 2,000 miles of driving is reasonable given #3 above.

 

Kudos for zero timing maintenance on a newly purchased "used car". So many do not understand this common sense wisdom. The only other comment I have is check your fluids and tire pressures every fill-up. Best wishes.

 

Can you post a link to the catch can installed in these pictures? Seems like very few ppl with gen2 priuses install them. Would like one myself.

 

1) If you are THAT concerned about it, why don't you get rid of the car.
2) That kind of oil usage is NOT really "excessive" to the point of being a problem in and of itself.
3) Even if the oil warning light comes on, if you shut the engine down IMMEDIATELY there is a good chance that there will be NO damage.

If......you do nothing except keep a close eye on the oil level .......and maybe switch to a slightly heavier "high mileage" oil, the oil usage itself should not prevent you from getting a LOT of good miles from the engine. Maybe another 50-100K miles. Just from the gas engine, mind you.

It is good to be a little concerned.
I think you are overly concerned.

 

Nice write up, thank you. Seems like this would at least add a measure of protection for the catalytic converter. I'm at about 1qt oil/5000mi at 205k mi, so nothing abnormal or problematic. Trying to keep it that way.

 

My check engine light just came on last night, I have 231,280 miles. So I ran Techstream and pulled P1116, P1121, B1421 and B1271. While doing so, checked the oil to find it just below the last notch. Just logged onto here to look the codes up and find a simple repair and found this...I never would have thought in a million years that oil burning would be a problem with a Prius. My SRT or Evo IX, sure! But not the Prius. Excellent write up. Thank you!
D

 

What is the next possible solution for the sludge on the pisotns? seafoam in spark plug housing did not work. please help and thanks

 

I can't quite work out what you're saying here. The codes you mention have nothing to do with oil-burning, sludge or anything else mentioned in this thread, so I am at a loss to understand why you think an oil catch can is your solution.

There are many threads on the subject of P1116 and P1121. Use the search function and restrict the search to the Gen 2 threads.

These two codes involve the Coolant Temperature Sensor for Coolant Heat Storage and the Coolant Flow Control Valve Position Sensor, respectively.

The B1271 most likely means your Combination Meter has failed. Texashybridbatteries.com offers a repair exchange service for ~$150 to fix this if you can do the swap yourself, or you can have your Prius garage swap it for you.

You can ignore the B1421 unless you where outside in bright sunlight when you did the code reading.

 

Car: 2007 Toyota Prius 200k
Oil used: 10w30
Note: I used seafoam in small amounts in the gas and tried to soak it in the spark plug housing which I mentioned that I tried before I came across this post.
Problem: I put an after market cat on the car and within 2000 miles it went out again. I think I am dealing with bad cat and which I recently seen was oil leaking all side and back of engine which is coming from the valve cover gasket. I replaced it but still it's leaking so I think my oil consumption might have to problems linked to it. I will be trying to get better sealer for the gasket on the valve cover to get an exact amount that I'm losing due to the burning.

I was losing 1 qt every 1k miles but I think most of that is being leaked from the valve cover gasket.

The pcv valve was checked out and looked good fyi. It rattled a bit so I didn't bother to replace it.

Codes: I only get a cat converter code but could be related to that garbage cat I bought on ebay

 

Hey Patrick. How's it going and been a while. I still have my 07 for 2 years now and thanks to you its been driving great after we did all that 100k mile parts change and maintenance. Now I have 148k and still performing excellent. The oil catch can is the only thing I haven't done to my car.
So far I change oil and filter every 4750 miles with 5w-30 and I probably lose a little over 1/4 of 1 quart the whole oil change cycle. My gas mileage is just fine for a 37 miles one way to work with 40% highway driving on average 45mpg.
My question is, do you think I should install one of this catch can? If so, what would you recommend?
Thanks..

 

I personally do not see the point of the oil catch can.

 

Great. I thought id ask you. because I know you know a lot about prius. Since when I bought it used and replaced all those 100k major maintenance and parts replacement, I was able to put in 48k on my car for 2 years no problem at all. It runs just like it was and I hardly even burn any oil. This is and excellent long distance mile driving car.
Thanks...

 

Here's an example from our Prime that I did an oil change on at 30k miles last weekend (oil catch can installed at 21 k miles):



The point of the catch can is to remove the PCV valve blow by and not send it back through the process.

I figured I'd see if the redesign eliminated this, but as you can see, nope.

Now the gen2 PCV valve is high up, so does that minimize the blow by potential.

Only one way to find out.

 

So is that the oil caught over the entire change interval (presuming 5,000 mi) or have you emptied it over the interval?

 

Not emptied over the 9k miles it was installed .

OCI on the prime is 10k miles .

So spooge is going back through if not caught.