Consumes oil 1 quart per 1000 miles.
Check engine light.
Nice car, but oil consumption makes it a headache as far as maintenance is concerned.
Good mileage, but lacks low end power.
Sounds like previous owner abused the car. e.g. Never check oil?? Ran it dry???
There are SO MANY Toyota 1.8L engines like this driving around in the WORLD, if there was a real problem with oil consumption it would be better known.
As with any used car, get a THOROUGH check-out by a mechanic, including compression and leak-down of engine. Also don't buy a car that has had it's check engine light reset within a month or minimum 4 complete drive-cycles (this can be checked with better OBDII interfaces).
2001 Prizm has what appears to be a known piston ring defect that leads to excessive oil consumption (check various Chevy boards for more on that), may also be an issue in near years of this Toyo powered item. Symptoms are normal running other than high oil use (a qt every 300-1k miles) and a sooty tailpipe, plus loud howl and air dissipation if you remove the oil cap during idle to check for crankcase blow (watch for loose oil droplets, and wear an old shirt). Oil may not show in air cleaner, seems to simply burn unless otherwise collecting in piston or drain sump. Suggestions are to check the EGR and PCV, but appears those may be side issues to critical piston ring failures. GM has no known action pending, despite the numerous complaints on the Toyota supplied engine.
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