Is every Gen 2 DIYer on a collision course with an engine swap?

Lol... Just keep driving your Gen2 and don't worry about it. Not only does the engine have classic simple long lasting Toyota durability built into it but because its a hyrbid you use the engine way less often than you would in a regular car. What's more you've yet to drive one past 300K miles and the engines usually don't fail until you get close to 400K miles.

Lastly, if you ever do have to replace an engine its an easy job... These two dudes did it for first time in one evening after they got home from work:

 

195 and 5K to run low youll make 400 plus.. on that same usage .nothing to fix . Let it go ..

 

more like every gen 3

 

You can always do a Piston Soak to deal with the oil consumption. Prius Piston Soak Procedure

 

Valvoline "Restore and Protect" has gotten good press for reducing oil consumption. Inexpensive to try...

 

Best if the car is driven quite a bit. Word of mouth is that it takes several oil changes for this to really make a difference. I'm trying it, but at one oil change a year (we don't drive that much) it may take years to see a change. Especially since last I checked it was only burning 1 qt in 3k or 4k miles, which is well within "normal" consumption. Someone driving 20k miles a year would find out much sooner.

Also, try as I might, I have not been able to find out what sort of conditions are optimal for this product to work. Highway driving, stop and go, the car just sitting off so that the chemicals can work their way in at low temperature? The manufacturer probably knows but isn't sharing.

 

Keep checking the oil level and top off as needed. Until it reaches a point where oil consumption causes "problems", what would you gain by replacing the engine now?
My 06 was using a quart every 4-5k at 160k, still uses the same at 250k.
The industry "rule of thumb" for consumption is up to 1 quart every 3k is fine. Some OE's allow 1 quart every 1k for certain "high performance" models.

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Just keep oil in it.

Most shops keep the JDM accessories attached which makes the swap easier. I have seen it done in one day by an experienced mechanic and a helper. Based on your questions you would need to be the helper. First timers might take a week, have to buy tools and still end up with problems.

A gen2 JDM has unknown miles and model years. However it can't be newer than 2009 which is old even if it was sitting in a pile in Japan for ten years. However if your engine was blown (bent rod, hole in the block, etc) I would use a JDM over a US salvage yard engine.

No oil or flush will solve a Toyota low tension ring oil burning problem.

These engines normally can not be rebuilt but can have new rings installed, normally an engine out procedure with far more cost and labor than a swap.

Gen3s are better candidates for JDM engines. A gen3 JDM can be as new as 2021 since they were sold new overseas through 2021. Therefore some gen3 JDM engines can have all the updates; some can be very risky 2010-2014 models. They have guarantees but the labor is the costly part. If you live near a city with a JDM engine distributor you can try to cherry pick the engine.

 

Thought Toyota spec is 1 quart every 600 miles to meet excess consumption threshold.

 

Possibly.
Since Toyota corporate is writing the rules, they would make a specification that reduces their warranty costs as much as possible.

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When Toyota was rebuilding gen3s due to excessive oil consumption, the metric was a minimum of one quart in 1100 miles.

Toyota had seals they would install on the oil drain plug, filter and dipstick to ensure the owner did not remove oil during the required 1100-1300 mile test period.



The reality is a good engine can go 5,000 miles with no observable oil consumption.

 

Right you are, from page 325 of the North American, gen 2 Owner’s Manual.

 

If my car was suddenly burning a quart every 500 miles I wouldn't be very happy about having all those seals in place. Presumably the owners had the option for coming in at a lower number of miles if prior history suggested that it was necessary.

 

Keep in mind most of the oil is not "burning", it's using. My 07 manual says when you use re-gen, it puts oil into the upper cylinder. I cut way, way down on my oil use by driving the car different.

I used to use re-gen a lot to keep my battery fuller. I used a quart a week. After I adjusted my driving, not using re-gen as much, I went to a quart a month with the same amount of driving.

People keep repeating it's burning oil from the low tension rings when it's in the manual that the motor pushes oil into the upper cylinder when you use re-gen.

I found by reading my manual the way you drive the car is the most difference in how much oil you USE. In one day, I went from a quart a week to a quart a moth.

ebm

 

1 quart ever 5000 miles probably made many here very jealous.
So you can drive MILLIONS of miles before the cost of the oil amounts to the cost of a replacement engine. Before you add millions of miles, something else will happen.

 

Again a good engine can go 5,000 miles with no observable oil consumption. This was the first 100k mile experience for most of us.

An excessive oil burner at 1100 miles per quart or worse can return to no observable with updated pistons and rings.

Many hundreds of cars at one small shop here go from oil burning and blown head gaskets to no observable with a JDM engine shop for less money than a ring job.

 

And, even if paying full retail for synthetic oil, one can drive a MILLION more miles at 1 quart per 5000 miles before hitting $1500.

 

A million miles sounds like a lot. I forgot to include that it's over 40 times around the earth. Happy motoring!