Quote:
Originally Posted by mpg_numbers_guy
I'd avoid the 2010 and 2011 Prius due to excessive oil consumption. The other years are pretty rock solid. Don't discount the Prius C either, they can sometimes be had for less and their battery replacements are cheaper. Gets about 0-5 mpg lower on the hwy and 5-10 mpg higher in the city compared to the full size Prius.
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Its not just 2010-2011. Its the entire gen 3 prius which is an oil burner and head gasket popper (for a reason). The solution is not a big deal though. Piston soak, clean the intake valves, injector tips, intake manifold egr path, egr valve, and egr cooler (the egr system), and clean the pcv valve and its good to go. You can do all of that all at once in an overnight period for cheap if you are up to doing it. The car just has wimpy piston rings which allows them to clog up easy and consume oil and it clogs all of those items. If you clean it all out and swap to 5k full syn oil changes it won't have those problems anymore.
It pops the head gasket commonly because the egr clogs and the car misfires for 20k on cylinder 1 without throwing a check engine light. Finally when it does hit knock threshold limit to throw a check engine light its probably already popped the head gasket on cylinder 1 or 2.
More or less the egr system is not maintenance free but toyota acted like it was, and toyota acted like 10k oil changes were okay and they were not on the newer cars with low tension rings.