[davesupra]

There have been reports of PHEV owners getting their oil changed on time, and their oil still looks to be extremely contaminated with gasoline. I know GDI engines have routinely had this problem, but it seems to be pronounced with PHEV's. The problem stems from the ICE not getting warmed up sufficiently while the car is in EV mode. Every car with an internal combustion engine needs to be driven a sufficient distance at a sufficient speed to burn off the contaminants in the oil from the fuel. The solution would be to drive the vehicle in ICE only mode (by not charging the EV battery) every few weeks. Here is a sample of the oil drained from a PHEV at the normal service time (taken from FB post). To allow the extreme dilution of the oil would greatly reduce the longevity of the engine.

View attachment 128128 View attachment 128129

Without being able to smell that oil sample, it's hard to tell if it's actually fuel or simply moisture in the oil. In colder climates (where I live) many short trips can result in your oil looking like that due to moisture (condensation due to temperature). But a short road trip to get the engine up to temperature will burn the moisture off fairly quickly. You can see in the link below what oil can look like when this happens.

https://www.techenomics.net/2014/01/water-in-oil/

 

[davesupra]

I changed mine at 8k miles. I probably had 4k miles on the ICE just based on my 60mpg average over that time.

Oil report states 1.3% fuel dilution.

Is that number something to worry about? I'm guessing not but I'm not sure what a typical number would be....