Loving the 0w-16 in our new AWD Prius in Alaska

Originally Posted by jayg
Yep, beautiful wildlife and scenery. Aurora borealis, no traffic, clean water. Crazy.

And a fantastic place for photography!!!
I left Superior, WI for a warmer climate but my older brother would live there in a heartbeat.
 
Good reports so far from the North/Alaska ...

Interested to see the reports from the South such as stop & go traffic in Texas and/or family from the North driving through Death Valley!
shocked2.gif

Not saying the reports will be bad ... Just curious.
grin2.gif

I have a friend who drives the family from AK to CA during summer.
 
Originally Posted by OilUzer
Good reports so far from the North/Alaska ...

Interested to see the reports from the South such as stop & go traffic in Texas and/or family from the North driving through Death Valley!
shocked2.gif

Not saying the reports will be bad ... Just curious.
grin2.gif

I have a friend who drives the family from AK to CA during summer.





There shouldn't be any worries in any of those situations.
 
Enjoy that beautiful state, I would live there if our family didn't have so many ties here. And by the sound of it that engine oil is working just fine for your application thus far
 
I like these awd Pri-i, priuses? I've been curious what type of mileage they would get real world vs the fwd version.
 
Originally Posted by JoelB
I like these awd Pri-i, priuses? I've been curious what type of mileage they would get real world vs the fwd version.


They are virtually identical, talking within 2mpg and they actually get the same or better than the FWD Prius 5 trim cars.
 
Thanks for sharing OP. This will be an interesting one to watch.

Not really great for batteries to operate at such temps - does that Prius have a Li-ion? If so I'm not sure it will be allowed to charge below freezing. Perhaps it has a heater or heating loop?

My hybrid runs the engine a lot and really sacrifices MPGs just near freezing. Fortunately I'm not one to ever run heat much. Don't like it. Maybe just a little when really cold for a long drive... but I'd imagine that the Prius in your conditions doesn't see hybrid mode much, and little if any regenerations. But if I know I'll be doing a highway ride, I force the engine on by calling for heat. Otherwise it would practically have a cold start and immediate acceleration onto roads with decent speeds.

Very interested in hearing how this works for the long run including calculated tank MPGs.

I go from high 40s+ to low 40s. In the summer with little to no highway use I can do high 50s to low 60s, fwiw.
 
Originally Posted by JHZR2
Thanks for sharing OP. This will be an interesting one to watch.

Not really great for batteries to operate at such temps - does that Prius have a Li-ion? If so I'm not sure it will be allowed to charge below freezing. Perhaps it has a heater or heating loop?

My hybrid runs the engine a lot and really sacrifices MPGs just near freezing. Fortunately I'm not one to ever run heat much. Don't like it. Maybe just a little when really cold for a long drive... but I'd imagine that the Prius in your conditions doesn't see hybrid mode much, and little if any regenerations. But if I know I'll be doing a highway ride, I force the engine on by calling for heat. Otherwise it would practically have a cold start and immediate acceleration onto roads with decent speeds.

Very interested in hearing how this works for the long run including calculated tank MPGs.

I go from high 40s+ to low 40s. In the summer with little to no highway use I can do high 50s to low 60s, fwiw.



This isn't our first Prius. We've been driving Priuses for many years in these conditions and never had a battery issue. In fact most of the taxis I see in Anchorage and Fairbanks are Priuses or Escape hybrids. Lifetime on our fwd 2014 was 48-49 mpg. So far on this awd it's 54. I'm anticipating dropping to near 50 but no lower using my fed as a reference. They retain heat well, there is no alternator or power steering pump to drive off the motor as well. Once they are up to temp (and that happens quickly) they use hybrid mode almost as much as warm weather honestly.

They're actually great low maintenance cold weather cars. Virtually everybody that doesn't like them has never owned one and makes things up like "when the battery goes it will be $20k to fix". The batteries rarely go out and if they do it's nowhere near that amount. These cars save me money on fuel and maintenance that can go into my fun vehicles.
 
Originally Posted by jayg
So far (6k miles) the 0w-16 has been great in the wife's new AWD Prius. We are getting more mpg than our last FWD Prius right at 54 mpg lifetime average over the 6k miles.

One thing that worried me was the lack of a block heater on the new cars. Here in Alaska, it's nice to have but so far the coldest start was -5F outside of Fairbanks last week and there was zero drivetrain noise at all when the ICE came on. Even with the 0w-20 on our '14 Prius, if the car wasn't plugged in below 0F you would get a second or two of valvetrain clatter. Both TGMO 0W oils but the 0w16 must be a little different or the newer engine has a different design in the ICE's oil pump or valvetrain perhaps. Haven't looked into it too close because it's the wife's Prius and I don't care about it that much considering there are much more fun things in the garage to tinker with.

As we go deeper in to the winter it will be interesting to see how the 0w-16 holds up without a block heater at -30F and -50F on occasion if I find myself in the interior again. Ideally, I'd be parking inside but it doesn't happen every time.

We had a hot summer with crazy wildfires and the same oil saw highway cruising at 80 mph at 85F. Going off the 10k mile schedule puts me changing this oil in March so we should definitely have some -40F days in the mix. That will bring this oil to driving in conditions that span at least 120 degrees.

I don't plan on doing a UOA until at least 20k but I'll report back if anything interesting pops up.

I have been averaging about 70 mpg both city and highway in the eco mode on my 2020 Prius Prime XLE plug-in hybrid with 0W-16 Japanese factory-fill oil. Now, that's about three times the gas mileage of a typical new car! One thing I noticed is that when the EV charge on the lithium battery is fully depleted, the car becomes equivalent to the non-plug-in Prius and the gas mileage drops to around 55 mpg. Therefore, if you have at least about 10% left in the EV charge, the car seems to run a lot more efficient than the non-plug-in Prius -- perhaps the system is able to optimize the hybrid operation better with the extra battery charge. However, I probably need a lot more data to confirm this. Nevertheless, some other Prius Prime owners have observed the same behavior.

You know that the fourth generation Prius is a lot more efficient than the previous generations, right?
 
It's hard to believe that there are people that still think 0w-20 and 0w-16 oils are ‘too thin of an oil'.

As for the price of TGMO, dealers around here sell it for $4.25~/quart. Dealer price is approx. 2.80~/quart. Negotiate.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by PowerSurge
It's hard to believe that there are people that still think 0w-20 and 0w-16 oils are ‘too thin of an oil'.

As for the price of TGMO, dealers around here sell it for $4.25~/quart. Dealer price is approx. 2.80~/quart. Negotiate.


Negotiate? With who? It's not handbag in Singapore.
lol.gif
It's supply and demand. Everything comes on a barge up here. Everything has a mark up that two dealerships 360 miles apart don't get a cut of so it's non-negotiable.

I can either by it at the dealer or wait on Amazon Prime (not next day here). Either way, I can get it less than $30 once a year so it's not a big deal.
 
Originally Posted by jayg
Originally Posted by PowerSurge
It's hard to believe that there are people that still think 0w-20 and 0w-16 oils are ‘too thin of an oil'.

As for the price of TGMO, dealers around here sell it for $4.25~/quart. Dealer price is approx. 2.80~/quart. Negotiate.


Negotiate? With who? It's not handbag in Singapore.
lol.gif
It's supply and demand. Everything comes on a barge up here. Everything has a mark up that two dealerships 360 miles apart don't get a cut of so it's non-negotiable.

I can either by it at the dealer or wait on Amazon Prime (not next day here). Either way, I can get it less than $30 once a year so it's not a big deal.


Well, in your case that's the price you're gonna have to pay then.
smile.gif
 
Originally Posted by jayg


Negotiate? With who? It's not handbag in Singapore.
lol.gif
...


lol.gif

one of the dealerships in our area sells everything including cheap tools, key chains and lots of other misc. junk in the parts dept. I see the same stuff every time and sometimes on sale. I'll have to look for handbags next time and maybe negotiate! wife will get an oil change and a handbag
grin2.gif
Christmas is not far ...
 
Originally Posted by jayg
Originally Posted by JHZR2
Thanks for sharing OP. This will be an interesting one to watch.

Not really great for batteries to operate at such temps - does that Prius have a Li-ion? If so I'm not sure it will be allowed to charge below freezing. Perhaps it has a heater or heating loop?

My hybrid runs the engine a lot and really sacrifices MPGs just near freezing. Fortunately I'm not one to ever run heat much. Don't like it. Maybe just a little when really cold for a long drive... but I'd imagine that the Prius in your conditions doesn't see hybrid mode much, and little if any regenerations. But if I know I'll be doing a highway ride, I force the engine on by calling for heat. Otherwise it would practically have a cold start and immediate acceleration onto roads with decent speeds.

Very interested in hearing how this works for the long run including calculated tank MPGs.

I go from high 40s+ to low 40s. In the summer with little to no highway use I can do high 50s to low 60s, fwiw.



This isn't our first Prius. We've been driving Priuses for many years in these conditions and never had a battery issue. In fact most of the taxis I see in Anchorage and Fairbanks are Priuses or Escape hybrids. Lifetime on our fwd 2014 was 48-49 mpg. So far on this awd it's 54. I'm anticipating dropping to near 50 but no lower using my fed as a reference. They retain heat well, there is no alternator or power steering pump to drive off the motor as well. Once they are up to temp (and that happens quickly) they use hybrid mode almost as much as warm weather honestly.

They're actually great low maintenance cold weather cars. Virtually everybody that doesn't like them has never owned one and makes things up like "when the battery goes it will be $20k to fix". The batteries rarely go out and if they do it's nowhere near that amount. These cars save me money on fuel and maintenance that can go into my fun vehicles.



Your older ones might have used Ni-MH batteries vs Li-ion. Some vehicles use battery heaters to get the battery to temp.

The Li ions will not go back into the anode and will irreversibly plate out without some other method (severe limiting of charge rate, no employment of the battery, heating of the battery, etc). That's not a vehicle discussion, it's fundamental physics.

Somehow the Prius does it. Somehow my accord hybrid does it too. Not entirely sure how though.
 
Originally Posted by JHZR2
Thanks for sharing OP. This will be an interesting one to watch.

Not really great for batteries to operate at such temps - does that Prius have a Li-ion? If so I'm not sure it will be allowed to charge below freezing. Perhaps it has a heater or heating loop?

The AWD Prius still uses an NiMH battery pack. AFAIK, Toyota doesn't use any auxillary heating devices for their battery packs, they are all air-cooled and take in air from the passenger compartment.

The 1st-2nd gen Prius did use a coolant heat storage system to pump in 3L of warm coolant into the engine cooling loop to help reduce startup HC emissions. The 3rd-4th gen cars use an exhaust heat recovery system.
 
Originally Posted by aquariuscsm
-50F?? OMG what does it feel like to be standing in -50F weather?


I'll ski down to about 10 above.

I'll ride a snowmachine down to -20 or so.

When it hits -50F, I try not to stand in it. I'm usually working inside (thankfully).
 
Back
Top