Valvoline Restore and Protect in Toyota Prius with 291K miles

DirectRejection said:
I personally know several people with head gasket failures on Gen 2 Priuses.

HPL provides excellent return on investment, partly due to extended OCIs.

Please follow up with any possible issues with oil consumption, as that would be interesting re R&P.

Good luck with your Prius.
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You're crazy. Its a 2008 prius with nearly 300k miles. An HPL oil change is going to cost nearly more than what the car is worth for no benefit.

No consumption or issues other than a little bit of harmless carbon build up, OP, just keep doing what you are doing with cheapie synthetics changed per the manufacturers required OCI. You will continue to do more cleaning as time goes on.
 
We're Metals said:
Its a 2008 prius with nearly 300k miles. An HPL oil change is going to cost nearly more than what the car is worth for no benefit.

No consumption or issues other than a little bit of harmless carbon build up, OP, just keep doing what you are doing with cheapie synthetics changed per the manufacturers required OCI. You will continue to do more cleaning as time goes on.
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We're Metals said:
You're crazy. Its a 2008 prius with nearly 300k miles. An HPL oil change is going to cost nearly more than what the car is worth for no benefit.

No consumption or issues other than a little bit of harmless carbon build up, OP, just keep doing what you are doing with cheapie synthetics changed per the manufacturers required OCI. You will continue to do more cleaning as time goes on.
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Based upon personal, fuller knowledge of the total benefits of HPL and Toyota hybrids, I recommend HPL PP 0W8, a durable oil filter, and a one year OCI.

I am feeling well substantiated and pretty stable, myself. Best wishes to the OP.
 
I had a 2004 Prius several years ago. Bought it with 188k mi and I remember it having a nice crust under the oil fill cap. It used about 1qt/5k mi which was totally reasonable. At 190k I started it on a 10k mi oci w/Mobil HM 5w30, and to my amazement by the next oil change that just topping it off every 1k mi a cleanish little circle of metal had appeared on the baffle under the oil fill cap. Ran a Fram XG3600 which will push the total oil capacity of that engine up to a full 4qts. It never really visibly dirtied the oil that bad either, nothing like the DI vehicles I have now.

What's your consumption? At that mileage, it would be tempting to just run HPL on an indefinite oci and top up as needed once the engine has purged most of the crud. That would be a great way to get the benefit of the HPL without a significant spend.
 
Keep an eye on her engine oil level. My old 2005 Prius with 1.3 engine would burn a quart of oil every month, once it reached over 200,000 miles. No matter what brand or filter. Plus, check the head bolts every 6 months...they tend to loosen up around cylinder #1.
 
Yes, I check the oil level quite regularly. I haven't seen any drop in oil level yet.

I'm not sure why anyone would suggest running 0w8 oil in an engine with almost 300K miles and originally spec'd for 5w30. ❓

Regardless, I won't be doing that, and I won't be deviating from my current plan:
- change the filter every 3-4 weeks until the weather gets too cold for me to want to work outside at which point I'll put in a fresh charge of R&P
- followed by oil changes twice a year (spring and fall)

I'm not worrying about head gaskets at this point because... I'm not sure how worrying about it would prevent it 🤷‍♂️
 
TwoC400s said:
Yes, I check the oil level quite regularly. I haven't seen any drop in oil level yet.

I'm not sure why anyone would suggest running 0w8 oil in an engine with almost 300K miles and originally spec'd for 5w30. ❓

Regardless, I won't be doing that, and I won't be deviating from my current plan:
- change the filter every 3-4 weeks until the weather gets too cold for me to want to work outside at which point I'll put in a fresh charge of R&P
- followed by oil changes twice a year (spring and fall)

I'm not worrying about head gaskets at this point because... I'm not sure how worrying about it would prevent it 🤷‍♂️
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Exactly!! Enjoy your 300k mile ride!!
 
TwoC400s said:
Yes, I probably should have waited to see if there was oil consumption. Ah well such is life.

The Super Tech filters were readily available so I grabbed 4 of them, and I also have a case of 12 of the Toyota OEM filters that was ~$50.

I'll be back around in a month or so with pics of the second R&P filter.
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Nice thread! Personally I think you were wise not to waste time and just go for the Restore and Protect. It’s a car with nearly 300,000 miles on it and clearly the Restore and Protect is doing something. It’s not like you were going to return the car or get the engine replaced under factory warranty from Toyota. I guess it would have been nice to have a baseline but when you buy a used car the itch is to get it going with a routine right away, before the “shine” of buying something wears off. IMO

Regarding the Super Tech filters — I just bought a few of them myself for my Toyota. Walmart was out of the Fram Ultras and there the Super Techs were just sitting there…figured why not? Opened up the box, took a look at them, I was pretty impressed with the quality control and finish of the filters. Plastic end caps, clean pleats, etc. No idea if it filters as well and a Fram Ultra but it has to meet some sort of standard. And the Super Techs were only around $3.50 a piece. I might buy more.
 
Here's the second RnP filter. Three weeks, ~450 miles.

Notes: Still a considerable amount of black grit. The grit on the brown paper next to the filter element is all from the oil that flowed off the element after stretching it out. The paper was quite clean before I put the element on it.

Also, I did notice a small amount of oil consumption in the last 450 miles. when I changed the filter last time I made sure to meticulously check the oil level and get it just below the max line.

Today it was halfway between the max and min lines. I'll have to ask Dr. Google how much oil that is.

The only audible I've called from my original plan was the filter I put on today was a Fram PH3600. I wanted to see if I could get a bit more filter media to trying to collect up more of this gritty carbon.

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TwoC400s said:
Here's the second RnP filter. Three weeks, ~450 miles.

Notes: Still a considerable amount of black grit. The grit on the brown paper next to the filter element is all from the oil that flowed off the element after stretching it out. The paper was quite clean before I put the element on it.

Also, I did notice a small amount of oil consumption in the last 450 miles. when I changed the filter last time I made sure to meticulously check the oil level and get it just below the max line.

Today it was halfway between the max and min lines. I'll have to ask Dr. Google how much oil that is.

The only audible I've called from my original plan was the filter I put on today was a Fram PH3600. I wanted to see if I could get a bit more filter media to trying to collect up more of this gritty carbon.

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Your plan is working well. Nice pictures. I’d use a CarQuest premium in 3600 size myself
 
TwoC400s said:
My daughter's first car: 2008 Toyota Prius with 291K miles!

I figured I would throw some Valvoline R&P 5w20 at it and see what happens.

The oil change sticker on it when we bought said service would be due in ~1500 miles (no clue what oil was in it, the shop sticker had a Valvoline logo, but it could be anything), but I just went ahead and changed it anyway.

My plan is is to change the filter about every 3-4 weeks which is about 4-500 miles currently. I did the first filter change today.

Here's pics of the filter (with mystery oil) that came off the car (I wasn't properly prepared and mangled the filter media) after ~3500 miles:
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If you ordered a Carfax before purchase, it sometimes lists oil changes if they were done at a dealer or chain store shop.
It could give you some indication into how often the vehicle had oil changes.

I believe on that year Prius Toyota recommended 5,000 mile oil changes with synthetic oil.
 
TwoC400s said:
Head gasket failure on an Gen 2 Prius? Extremely rare. These cars commonly go 500K on the stock motor without issue.

Maybe the other NZ engine variants in Scions or whatever, but I could only find a couple of HG failures specifically for Gen2s. Gen 3 and 4 seem to have a little more of an issue as well.

There's no way in the world I'll be paying for HPL for this car. It's probably just going to stay on R&P for the foreseeable future, I'll change it every 6 mos.
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I ran HPL in my Prius. It ain’t worth it since it does use oil. I’m sticking with R&P or Rotella T6 MV 5W-30 if possible.

I’m running my HPL cache in a Lexus LS430 with 76K on the clock that doesn’t burn a drop of oil.
 
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