2010 Prius V. Around 60K miles, dealer started telling me that engine oil was low when I brought it in but it's OK because "we topped it off."

At around 80K miles, they put in oil with a dye to see if there was a leak. No leak. No appearance of burning oil. Black gunk in exhaust. No oil drips in garage. Problem continues to get worse. No low oil light, occasionally if going around a corner hard the "low engine oil pressure" light will flash, and I do mean flash for a split second. Unless you are looking at the light, you cannot see what is flashing. Problem continues.

After gasket was replaced, when I took it in at the recommended 5K intervals, I was told that there was only 1.5 quarts of oil in the car. In one 5K interval, I put three quarts of oil in, and still only had 1.5 quarts when I took it in. One of the quarts I added was just two days before the service appt and I drove 300 miles. That meant the car used six quarts of oil in 5,000 miles.

Now have done three oil consumption tests. First one was rejected because I had added a quart. Second one showed use of .2 quarts in 1,200 miles, one finished yesterday shows I am burning one quart of oil per 1,000 miles. Dealership say: "that's normal for a car that age." My questions: -if I am down to 1.5 quarts, why do I not get a low engine oil light or low pressure warning that lasts long enough for me to read? Dealer: well the low pressure light comes on only if the pressure is too low, so you are OK." Me: Really. If 1.5 quarts is OK why do you design the engine to hold 4.5 quarts?.... No response. -If it is "burning oil at that rate, why do I never see smoke, but only have oil in my exhaust and building up on my wheels and on the lower panels of my car; doesn't this indicate that the oil is not burning off, but is just blowing out? Dealer: no response.

I have my suspicions that Toyota changed the telemetry on these cars to remove the low oil light in an effort to mask the problems until you are out of warranty.

The summary of my problem: -engine oil low when you brought it in, but we topped it off. You're good. -engine oil low; we think we need to replace the gasket. -engine oil low. YOU NEED A NEW ENGINE. We can get you a used one with 20K on it and install it for $5,000 or $10,000 if you want a new one. -I complain to service manager. This is not right. OK, they say, we will send it up to corporate. -three oil consumptions tests. Result: you're burning a quart every 1,000 miles and that's normal (but no smoke so it's not burning, it's just blowing through the engine and out the exhaust). -my last question yesterday was, well ore of a statement, why before we did three oil consumption tests were you right out of the box telling me I needed a new engine? No response on that one yet.

I've been having the same problem as others. It just started around 114,000 miles on my 2010 Prius IV. The mechanic says there are no leaks that he could see. The first time I took it in they could not find the problem at all as there was just he General Warning indicator coming on (yellow triangle with exclamation point in it).

It was only after I drove it another 100 miles or so that a quick warning message came on also about low engine oil pressure. I had just had the oil changed less than 1000 miles ago and the mechanic said when he opened it up, less than 2 quarts came out. I now have to check it every few hundred miles to monitor the consumption.

There are no recalls or warnings about this issue. I've always owned Toyotas but after this and my previous engine problem with a 4Runner, I'm done.

INCREASED OIL CONSUMPTION PAST 100K MILES NORMAL FOR A 2010 TOYOTA PRIUS AT 1 QUART PER 2000 MILES? OIL SOOT WIPED FROM EXHAUST PIPE. YELLOW LOW OIL WARNING LIGHT AND BEEP SOUNDS WHEN MAKING HARD TURNS.

ON JUNE 1, 2015 AT 101131 MILES, OIL LEVEL WAS DOWN 2 QUARTS AND REQUESTED AN OIL CHANGE AND FILTER FROM DEALER. ABOUT 2000 MILES LATER ON JUNE 26, 2015 AT 103300 MILES, TOPPED OFF WITH 1 QUART OF 5-30 SAE MOBILE 1 FULL SYNTHETIC OIL FOR HIGH MILEAGE CARS.

Update from Jul 31, 2015: Despite switching to heavier 5-30 SAE MOBILE 1

FULL SYNTHETIC OIL FOR HIGH MILEAGE CARS:

105,465 miles 07-29-2015, appears Prius needs a quart of oil after 2165 miles.

I have read the comments from other Toyota Prius 2010 owners. My problem is identical, the vehicle began showing a low engine oil pressure light at a little over 100K miles. I have been dutiful in having the vehicle serviced as recommended. I have explained the problem to the dealership and the representatives have assured me no oil leaks are evident on their computer diagnostics. The last representative told me this sometimes happens and "we just have to replace the engine". Not good.....I will begin adding oil as other have suggested. Very disappointing.

Same problem as many on here with GenIII Prius (2010). At 100,000 miles, car magically begins burning oil. Mine was almost dry when the light did go off (3.5 qts low). I have always had it serviced at a local Toyota Dealer. Last oil change was about 2000miles ago. They say they always use full synthetic. My thoughts are they did not fully fill it up, coupled with the engine burning oil. It has not run weird or died. Hope I did not do too much damage to the engine. I don't trust any shop, including the dealers, with cars....

When my car was new, the same Toyota Dealer cut a hole in the access panel under the front of the Prius to more easily access the oil filter???? They denied doing it, but I had only had it serviced at one other Toyota Dealer who alerted me to the fact it had been cut. It is a panel to basically keep road dirt, water debris, out of the engine compartment. It's about a $400 piece of plastic, but served a purpose.

Excessive oil consumption suddenly at 110,000 miles. One owner vehicle, no leaks. Vehicle has been dealer serviced since new. Need to add approx 1/2 quart every 1k miles. Toyota says its within "spec". While at the dealer for the last of 3 oil consumption tests, a couple with a Toyota Highlander sat next to us for the SAME problem.

An online search reveals lots of Internet chatter about Toyota 4 cylinder engines in Camrys, Highlander, Prius, etc with excessive and sudden oil consumption around 100000 miles. A common thought seems to be the piston rings are faulty.

We are lifetime Toyota owners and have owned many. I have always been happy with Toyota products, customer service and the longevity of the product. I was considering a new Tacoma next year. We will NEVER buy another Toyota product again. I fear as more of these model year vehicles approach 100000 miles, there will be more disgruntled customers, more complaints and more customers lost for Toyota.

Toyota needs to step up, issue a recall and fix these vehicles with early consumption issues. It will be costly, but not as costly as loosing all the repeat business in the future. To any potential Toyota customers, until this issue is resolved, I would stay away unless you are looking for a disposable car. About the time it's paid off you will be shopping around. Hey Toyota, if you are looking for me, I am over at the Honda dealer shopping for a new car.......

I bought my Prius five years ago. I chose Toyota for it's reliability and the Prius for the gas mileage. My problem sounds exactly like everyone else's.

About a month ago the exclamation point flashed on my dash board. The message that came up said low engine oil pressure. It only happened when I turned a corner or braked suddenly. The car wasn't leaking oil and there was about 3000 miles to my next oil change but I brought it to the Toyota dealer to get it looked at. The agent couldn't get a reading on the dip stick. I'm thinking it's some odd ball thing going on, like they hadn't filled it up all the way at the last oil change. But then he comments that he hasn't seen this happen on a Prius with this low of miles. They topped off the oil and told me to bring it back after 1200 miles.

When I brought the car in last week it had used almost a quart of oil. The agent said the car was burning oil and it was something to do with the piston rings. I'd purchased the extended warranty that's good to 125,000 miles but apparently my problem isn't bad enough. They will only fix it if it burns a quart of oil every 600 miles.

Do they make warranties in a way so that you never qualify to actually use it? The warranty says it doesn't cover normal wear and tear, but how does having to add 8 quarts of oil between changes equal normal. Like a previous complaint said, I haven't had to carry oil in my car since I drove a '72 Chevy. The agent is going to check with Toyota to see if they will do anything about it. I'm waiting to hear.

I purchased my 2010 Prius because my 2005 Prius performed flawlessly. I purchased my 2010 at Andy Mohr Toyota Avon Indiana and always have them service it.

At 92,000 miles I saw my oil light come on while rounding a curve, then it went out. I checked the oil level and the stick showed nothing . I was running on a single quart of oil. I'm thinking engine damage. Why didn't the low oil light come on MUCH sooner. I added three quarts of oil before it showed on the dipstick. Reported it to Andy Mohr Toyota. They saw no leak. Asked me to come back every thousand miles to check level. Car was low on oil on every occasion. They changed the PVC valve and a gasket, the problem of oil burning is still continuing and has gotten worse.

My car is two thousand miles away from next oil change (120,252)and I've already put in SEVEN quarts of oil. Fully expect to use EIGHT or more quarts before next oil change.Toyota has contacted their field rep.to make a decision about my car, maybe extending warranty or rebuilding engine but no promises. Their service manager Tommy asked me; well how long do you expect a car to last". A lot longer than 118,000 mile or 4.5 years. My car was defective when it rolled off the assembly line, a lemon. If I wanted a car that burns two gallons of oil between changes I'd bought a much, much older car.

This car is advertised to have a low carbon footprint being a hybrid. Not so for my Prius Hybrid, burns oil and gas. This not an isolated incident. Do a search on 2010 Prius oil consumption problems and you'll discover it's a wide spread problem. Seems Toyota changed their piston ring design on many of their vehicles

Bought 2010 Prius in Sept. 2009 - our dream car. Loved it, good gas mileage, etc. Got "free for life" oil changes included when we bought the car and so we have ALWAYS had it serviced at our local dealership, Lithia Toyota, at the recommended intervals. And because the computer is programmed to send you that "oil service due soon" message at the recommended intervals, and the dealership always puts that sticker on our window reminding us when to bring it in, we are faithful about that.

In July 2014 on our way back from a trip to Missoula, MT (a 700 mile round trip from our home in Billings), an orange warning light (the triangle with an exclamation point) came on briefly a couple of times but there was no corresponding explanation in the "multi-information display"or a warning buzzer. Our mileage at that time was approximately 80000 miles. Since we were close to home we just took it in to our dealership and told them about it.

They checked the oil and it was VERY low so they filled it up and they said one possible cause could be a defective PCV valve. They had to order the part in so the PCV valve was replaced on August 8, 2014. In September, after driving less that 3,000 since the last oil change, the oil was again low and another oil change was done on September 24th. By this time we were wary, watching for any signs that oil was leaking onto our garage floor, etc., but we saw no indication of an oil leak. I began to take my car in more frequently just to have the Toyota folks check the oil level. I began to suspect that the car was using the most oil whenever we took a longer trip and especially when we went up and down mountains. This is Montana....nearly 600 miles from east to west with lots of mountain passes on the interstate. If your car uses big amounts of oil just from going from one place to another, that is NOT GOOD!

Over the months of November and December we mostly just used the car in our local area and the oil did go down about a quart or two. On Jan. 8, 2015, I had another total oil change at 87815 miles, about 3,000 miles since the last total oil change, as I wasn't taking any chances. We needed to make another round trip to Missoula and back, going over 3 mountain passes and then returning, so 6 passes in all but only 750 miles round trip. As soon as we returned we took it to the dealership and the oil had gone down to where it almost did not register on the dipstick and the mechanic put in 3.5 quarts of 0W-20 oil! We had to make another immediate trip to Missoula and back and on the return, went to Toyota on Jan .20 and they had to add another 1 1/2 quarts of oil. The guy at Lithia that I deal with most often has supposedly been on the phone with Toyota about this issue and the response is that losing a quart of oil about every 1000 miles is NOT A PROBLEM! So Lithia has recently put "stickers" on the oil cap and the oil outlet at the bottom of the engine to try to locate or verify what is causing the oil loss.

Just yesterday I took the car in again and it is "only" a quart low again so I was told I need to bring it back after I put another 1,500 miles on the car. I have been buying this explanation because I assume that this dealership is trying their best to communicate with Toyota on my behalf.....but today I decided to go online to see if others have had this same problem. Lo and behold, I am not alone! Am I wrong to expect that if I take excellent care of my car I should expect it to last for at least 200,000 miles and that it should NOT be having this excessive oil use problem?? It still gets great miles per gallon, and I have had no other problems with it. But if this is the way Toyota deals with its loyal customers then I will NEVER buy another Prius or Toyota product!!!!!!!

Update from Sep 17, 2015: Good news....after neither 7 months of frustration in getting Toyota to deal seriously with my complaint, we did eventually have a positive result. In March of this year (2015) I went in to our local Toyota dealer and this time I requested to speak with a manager, not one of the mechanics who had previously been the "go between" between me and Toyota. All the mechanic had been able to get out of Toyota was that this kind of drastic oil usage was "normal", etc. I was prepared this time....I printed out many pages (I had a file an inch or so thick) of stuff I had found on the internet, especially from this site "carcomplaints.com" , as well as took in copies of every bill for every oil change I had ever had on this Prius. I wish I had just gone to the manager sooner, because he said he was unaware of my previous complaints or efforts to deal with this. He was very impressed with the documentation I had, and in fact agreed that if what Toyota said was true, then on average I was going through 16 quarts of oil between recommended oil changes!! I have to say that he was extremely helpful, got right on it, and took copies of all my documentation to send to Toyota. That very afternoon he called back, said he had talked to Toyota and they agreed to send a new engine (not the 2010 one) and all they asked was that there be a three way split on the cost of the labor. Wow - we of course accepted their offer, and within a week we had a new engine. Our share of the labor cost was $427.50 which I thought was extremely fair. And in the six months since then we have put another 7,000 on the Prius with NO loss of oil whatsoever. I always get those requests from our dealership after any service to rate how well they did. Needless to say, in this situation I gave them a VERY positive review. I only regret I waited so long before going to the manager - but at least this way I had tons of documentation to support our problem and our efforts to fix it. Maybe it depends on the particular dealer ship as to how they respond, but our dealership certainly made me more likely to get another vehicle from them in future. Good luck to all of you having the same problem....there is hope!

Background information. I purchased my 2010 Toyota Prius in January 2010 in Killeen, Texas. I have had the car serviced every 10000 miles according to Toyota's recommendations.

About when my Prius turned 100,000 miles (around February 2014), my low oil pressure warning light came on. At first I thought, oh, a sensor had gone bad. It would come on if I braked suddenly or turned a corner, but never stayed on. I took the car to Cowboy Toyota in Dallas and the service adviser said "this was normal" and that I had oil in the car. I got home and checked the dipstick and it appeared dry to me. I drove it a little while longer and was due an oil change and took it to a Valvoline Oil change center in Dallas. They did not mention anything about being low or out of oil. They changed the filter and added oil---seems like they would have said something if there was very little oil in the car. Interestingly the light never came back on, until about 3000 miles later.

So I took the car into an oil service center in Marble Falls, Texas and I spoke with the manager on a Saturday. He checked my oil and said I literally had about a quart of oil left. He told me it isn't a sensor problem and to take it to a Toyota dealership. He topped the oil off with the recommended synthetic.

So I called Sport Toyota in Dallas later that Saturday and the service adviser thought this was strange. I told him the car is not leaking oil underneath and that I seem to burn a quart every 1000 miles. He said to bring in the car and they could perform an "oil consumption test". So on Monday morning, I brought the car in. This test is basically pull out dipstick, put dipstick back in, pull out dipstick and say"yeah your oil level has dropped since Saturday".

He said he would literally have to take the car apart to find out the problem and would cost over a thousand dollars, or I could just live with it and put in a quart of oil every 1000 miles. I was so angry. Of course I complained and said is this 1970? I have never had to cart around quarts of oil for a car before. This was my third Toyota (had a 4 Runner and a Celica before the Prius) and never ever had to add oil to my car. This is a Prius and I thought this car was supposed to be Eco friendly with "superior" gas mileage...

So I started the process of keeping a log of the dates and mileage of when I add oil to my car. In November 2014, I took the car into Toyota Autonation in Austin for my 110,000 mile service and told that service adviser the same story. His recommendation was to begin getting oil changes at 5000 mile increments instead of every 10000 recommended by Toyota, but that still doesn't solve the problem of having to add oil 4 times between oil changes. He also indicated that no oil leak could be found and that I am just consuming a lot of oil-yeah, I knew that.

So, what's up? Car is out of its warranty (just turned 5 years old and has now almost 115,000 miles). Makes me not want to invest in another Toyota.

After noting excessive oil usage on a trip to California (1.5 quarts over 1800 miles), I took the Prius to a California dealership. They noted a small oil leak, but said that could not account for the amount of oil used. Even though I indicated I had extended coverage, they said I would have to pay $2000 to open up the engine to see whether there was a more serious problem such as burned or worn rings because the warranty would not cover opening the engine to discover the problem. (I don't know whether they tried a compression test). I opted to have them repair the leak which the warranty covered (about $1800) less my deductible so that I could have a firm starting ground to measure oil consumption within the engine. I then returned home and had my local dealer look at the engine to no avail, but that episode is covered in a separate complaint.

I have a 125,000 mile extended warranty from Toyota. Before the 80,000 mile oil change at the dealer I had never had to add oil between the recommended 10,000 mile oil changes. The dealer informed me that the oil was more than a quart low when I brought in the car for 80K service. That had never happened before. Worried, I started checking the oil every 500 miles on an April trip to California. The trip out was about 1800 miles and during that time I had to add 1.5 quarts of oil. I took the car to a dealership outside San Francisco. They said there was a small oil leak, but not enough to account for the oil usage I experienced. They fixed the oil leak and billed my warranty for about $1800 while I paid the deductible.

I checked oil usage on the way home and had to add another quart. I took the car to my local dealer, the one who had changed the oil. They said that the Toyota factory warranty would not cover opening up the engine unless they tested for oil consumption. They filled the car with oil and I ran the sealed engine for 1200 miles. The car burned just under a quart. They said that Toyota would not open the engine unless it burned 1.2 quarts over the 1200 mile test, in other words, a quart every 1000 miles. I've never owned a car that used a quart in 1000 miles. Even though the car had suddenly gone from no oil consumption to excessive oil consumption, Toyota would not acknowledge a problem, and indicated that according to their tests, the car was within specs. I expect they do not announce that a quart of oil every 1000 miles is within specs when they are selling people the car because that would have killed my purchase.

My 2002 Escape has more than 215,000 miles on it, and I never have to add oil between 7500 mile oil changes. Based on early ring problems I've read about with other Toyotas, I'm pretty sure this is a problem with rings that are not operating properly with synthetic oil. I have about 30,000 miles left on my extended factory warranty. Now, the question is whether my extended warranty will run out before Toyota decides to honor its warranty using a reasonable standard. I'm currently adding a quart of oil about every 1500 miles: I do not think this oil usage indicates normal wear and tear on the engine. The condition could lead to catastrophic failure of the engine. The dealership assured me that such oil consumption is unusual in a Prius, that Prius engines ran for hundreds of thousands of miles without problems, but based on the strange conditions Toyota put on honoring their warranty, I find that difficult to believe. I really like most features on the Prius, but if you can't trust the car maker to honor the warranty (and the extended warranty was not cheap), can you afford to put that much money into one of the cars?

My 2010 Prius started burning approx. 1 qt of oil per 1200 miles after the 67000 oil change. The dealer said it's common for oil residue to occur around the pistons and to try mystery oil from WalMart. I have added 2 quarts since and am up at 75000 miles but it still burns oil.

I was thinking of trying a Kleen product or switching to Amsol oil but am unsure. There are no oil leaks on the pavement or anywhere in the engine compartment.

I will continue to research, apparently its becoming a well known issue. http://www.toyotaproblems.com/trends/excessive-oil-consumption/

I purchased a Toyota for the high quality and low maintenance of the Japanese manufacturing process but perhaps I made a serious mistake in my choice.

Don B Chicago