I have bin using 0w20 since I got the car as recommended in the owners book now I am a taxi driver and doing lots of little jobs . it seems to use a bit of oil . now a friend of mine who also has a prius has took his to Toyota before and they put 5w30 in his so just asking you really what you using and how's it going??. just to note my car has just had an inspection by Toyota and is running as it should.. just thinking about trying the 5w30 in it we are in the 2010 models 1.8
0W20 performs better than 5W30 in cold weather/stars. If you do a taxi job, probably the engine oil will be warm for long periods. I would try 5W30. Here in PT there are many 3gen using 10W40...
Go ahead. You likely will notice no difference.......either in oil usage or in gas mileage. If the miles are high.....say 80K or more, you might want to try a 10W30 high mileage type of oil. And what exactly is "using a bit of oil" ?
My owners manual states if one has to use 5W-30W (because of unavailability of 0-20) change back to 0-20 as soon as possible. I'd go with that advise.
True, but Toyota Europe has given free choice within the 3 grades in every country representative, so southern Europe countries supply 10W40 when basis service is contracted.
Yes, synthetic 5W30 would be fine at your temperatures. For those trembling at the thought of using any grade other than the "lemming oil" (that recommended by Toyota) the grade of oil can, according to Toyota, be chosen by each owner based on the temperature the car will experience. In the US, and especially California, the recommendation is more based on the requirement of meeting a "lifetime fuel efficiency" number, not on engineering. Politics, straight and simple! Go with the proper engineering solution.
Right on. OR......use what the book recommends and don't worry about it. Regardless of what you use it probably won't make THAT much difference anyway.
I believe the reason Toyota here recommends 0W20 year-round is because of it's lower viscosity, thereby reducing friction. It's also worry-free to use any time of the year. Being a synthetic, engine wear is not an issue either.
Engine wear is not much of an issue even with conventional oil, as long as the engine is properly designed, manufactured, and maintained. I just retired my '81 Mazda with 606K miles on the odometer, all on conventional oil. Its engine never showed any hint of wear of any oil-lubricated metal surface. No significant "stretch" (wear) of the original timing chain, original honing marks still visible on cylinder bores when last checked at well past 500K (another story!), no bearing problems, etc.
That's true nowadays, engine wear is rare, but it wasn't always that way. Engines tended to wear out, and it was fairly common to replace cylinder sleeves, piston rings and bearing shells long before 100k miles.
Use 0w20 oil. The 5w30 might be viable later on if oil burn becomes an issue. But when that oil was inadvertently used in my car my mpg's dropped to about 58 mpg absolutely maximum (whereas 75 mpg is tops on 0w20). What's your taxi use like? Is it lots of short runs with gaps in between or up and down the motorway? If it's the former then stick with 0w20, if the latter maybe consider 5w30? Using 5w30 I found the car seemed to 'stumble' a little more when the engine fired up on the transition from electric. A positive was that the engine sounded smoother on a cold start. By using 5w30 I guess the loss of mpg's at the top end is cheaper than fixing an engine burning oil.
last oil change was at 120.000 and it was topped up to the top of dip stick . we now on 122.550 and its reading half way on the dipstick
uk oil 0w20 or 5w30 ?? 2010 1.8 models please Yes. In other words with your oil use rate, it's not really going to matter that much. If your mileage is affected by using the 5w30 as much as Grumpy's was, it might be cheaper to use the 0w20 given your price for petrol. If I were using 1q every 5,000km I'd probably club up to 5w30 just to see if it impacted my burn rate. In other words? Your call.
Switching oils of different viscosities throughout the year used to have more of a basis in fact in years past, when the lubricating qualities of oils were less developed, than it does now. Switching to a lower viscosity oil in colder weather was a tradeoff, due to the difficulty of turning over an engine due to the thickening of the oil due to low temperatures*. Multi-grade oils were introduced later in an effort to provide the best of both worlds to some degree; whereby they didn't get "too thick" in cold weather, and they didn't "thin-out" too much when they warmed up. Multi-grade oils were still not available for more-critical applications, such as airplane engines for a long time, because they didn't provide the same level of protection as a single-grade oil. With the advent of synthetic additives, synthetic blends and full-synthetics, the level of protection has greatly increased, this making the grade less important than it used to be. Using a 0W-20 synthetic year around, as Toyota here in Canada recommends is a good idea. It basically covers all the bases as an engine oil. *This fact could be the reason we aren't all speaking German today. The Nazi assault on Moscow in 1941 was halted when temperatures plummeted to -30s, and effectively shut down the Wehrmacht, giving the Russians enough of a respite to regroup and eventually turn the tide on the Nazis.
