Originally Posted by jayg
So far (6k miles) the 0w-16 has been great in the wife's new AWD Prius. We are getting more mpg than our last FWD Prius right at 54 mpg lifetime average over the 6k miles.
One thing that worried me was the lack of a block heater on the new cars. Here in Alaska, it's nice to have but so far the coldest start was -5F outside of Fairbanks last week and there was zero drivetrain noise at all when the ICE came on. Even with the 0w-20 on our '14 Prius, if the car wasn't plugged in below 0F you would get a second or two of valvetrain clatter. Both TGMO 0W oils but the 0w16 must be a little different or the newer engine has a different design in the ICE's oil pump or valvetrain perhaps. Haven't looked into it too close because it's the wife's Prius and I don't care about it that much considering there are much more fun things in the garage to tinker with.
As we go deeper in to the winter it will be interesting to see how the 0w-16 holds up without a block heater at -30F and -50F on occasion if I find myself in the interior again. Ideally, I'd be parking inside but it doesn't happen every time.
We had a hot summer with crazy wildfires and the same oil saw highway cruising at 80 mph at 85F. Going off the 10k mile schedule puts me changing this oil in March so we should definitely have some -40F days in the mix. That will bring this oil to driving in conditions that span at least 120 degrees.
I don't plan on doing a UOA until at least 20k but I'll report back if anything interesting pops up.
I have been averaging about 70 mpg both city and highway in the eco mode on my 2020 Prius Prime XLE plug-in hybrid with 0W-16 Japanese factory-fill oil. Now, that's about three times the gas mileage of a typical new car! One thing I noticed is that when the EV charge on the lithium battery is fully depleted, the car becomes equivalent to the non-plug-in Prius and the gas mileage drops to around 55 mpg. Therefore, if you have at least about 10% left in the EV charge, the car seems to run a lot more efficient than the non-plug-in Prius -- perhaps the system is able to optimize the hybrid operation better with the extra battery charge. However, I probably need a lot more data to confirm this. Nevertheless, some other Prius Prime owners have observed the same behavior.
You know that the fourth generation Prius is a lot more efficient than the previous generations, right?