I have 180k miles on my prius. It's burning oil and I think it is because I burned the piston rings. It still has great power, I just need to stay on top of the oil. I change it now every 3k. What do people think about the swap or rebuild.
i would just keep adding oil, but if you insist on replacing it, i'd look for a lower mileage salvage from a later model.
+1. I'd finish wearing this one out before you replace it ... Swap or rebuild is a no-brainer. Swap every time. Rebuilding has the advantage of not having to yank as many things out of the vehicle, but the juice isn't worth the squeeze IMHO when you can cut/copy/paste a new motor in fewer hours and have a zero-percent chance of reassembly errors. Unless you're doing it yourself there's no way that it would be cheaper to rebuild the motor unless the mechanic has a labor rate that's less than minimum wage, and can get replacement pieces/parts at below wholesale cost. Besides.....even if you get a fairly neglected replacement, you're still going to get more miles out of it than your car will be economically viable for given the cost of things like HVAC, Brake, CVT, battery and other failures that have nearly a 100-percent chance of occurring before you wear out the replacement motor. Good Luck! Let us know if it's heads or tails!!
I'm not sure that even applies to these engines ... with the two-piece oil pan where I don't even think you can access the bottom end without taking both pieces off, which also dislodges the rear main seal, which you can't replace with the tranny on ... and then trying to bolt all the sections back together sealed with the form-in-place-gasket, which probably won't hold unless you had all the parts perfectly cleaned and dried on the bench. You will certainly not see your grandpa sliding under the car and rolling new bearings in with a couple turns of the crank like the old days. -Chap
