They Put Too Much Oil In The Prius!

Re: They Put Too Much Oil In The Prius!

...okay...but who are you? I was asking another person the question.

It's the norm for dealers to overfill the Prius, because many service dept. still follow Toyota's errant fill guidelines.

 

Re: They Put Too Much Oil In The Prius!

How do you know this? If you are going by the receipt they gave you then most likely you were just charged for 4 quarts of oil, it doesn't mean they actually put 4 quarts in.

 

Re: They Put Too Much Oil In The Prius!

What I do, when I bring my 2007 in for an oil and filter change, is give the writer a copy of the Toyota TSB that cautions against over fill. I make sure they attach it to the service instruction. Of course I check the oil level afterward to be safe. One time the writer said they knew about it and did not attach the TSB. Of course it was then overfilled and I had them drain out the excess.

 

As I've said before, the dealers are in between a rock and a hard place on this one. (Yep, I'm actually defending the dealer...well, a little bit.) Toyota fouled up the refill oil quantity and has not addressed that. Plus the average customer has perhaps an unrealistic expectation that the oil level should be "full"...as in at the top mark after an oil change. Customers tend to see anything below the top mark as requiring some more oil.

If I was running a Toyota service dept. I would make an explanatory sheet for Prius oil changes, to attach to each ticket. I would explain that anything between the hash marks is okay for operation, above the top mark is overfull, below the bottom is dangerously low. I would then explain that the target for the oil change is to put the level in the top half of the range, providing a buffer against oil consumption/leaks/loss while avoiding the overfill. And finally, I would have the tech/service advisor check/demonstrate the fill level was correct to the customer before they left the shop.

The beauty of good documentation and a system is that you only have to develope it once. After that it does the legwork for you.

 

Alternate method: buy three quarts of oil, leave them in the car, tell the service writer to use only those three and not top off. Problem solved.

 

Re: They Put Too Much Oil In The Prius!

While this is great from a customer perspective, it doesn't help the dealer with uninformed customers--the vast majority. If the dealer puts in only 3 quarts as routine and doesn't explain why, he/she is likely to have customers complain, or worse yet stop using them because they think the dealer has cheated them out of ~1 quart of oil that they were "entitled" to in the change.

 

Toyota isn't in error just with the Prius. The stated oil refill capacity on my FJ puts the oil about 4mm over the full dot. However, if I put in 5 litres, it's right on the full dot