Intake Manifold Service at 60k?

Replace the cabin and engine air filters yourself. Very easy. 60K maintenance is described here ... Toyota Parts and Service

 

Take the engine air filter off, clean/ replace, buy a can of MAF cleaner, spray MAF sensor down in air horn, spray walls of air horn slightly. Use a good flashlight to inspect walls of air horn ( part of intake system ) Cost: $15 for new air filter, $5.00 for MAF spray. Inspect AC filter and clean or vacuum. If in doubt about procedures, do a search on Priuschat and you will find voluminous information available with pictures. Unless you are having serious problems with your car stay away from the dealer, except for coffee and doughnuts Ask parts men questions. Pretty soon you will know more than they do.

 

Sounds like he is trying to do a walletectomy on you.

The intake manifold service on a gas engine is a complete scam.

As you can see in the above post's service list, belt inspection is called for, not belt replacement. Someplace around 100k you might consider replacing the belts as a precautionary measure.

It's a good idea to familiarize yourself with the service requirements in your owners manual and not let the dealer sell you any more than what the factory recommends.

If you plan to keep your car well over 200k miles, then a few things like transmission oil changes that aren't in the book are worth considering.

 

The intake manifold is a specific piece of hardware bolted to the engine's head. It doesn't need any service for the life of the engine on a gas engine. Either you misunderstood the service adviser, or he doesn't know what he is talking about, or he is a scammer... I think I have all possibilities covered

 

Since $$ is tight, it really would be to your advantage to learn how to inspect and replace the engine air filter and the cabin air filter yourself. There are numerous posts on how to do those tasks. Note that the dirty side of the engine air filter is on the bottom, so you need to remove it from the housing to inspect it.

The serpentine drive belt is probably getting glossy at 60K miles and I personally would change it at that point. However I agree that this could wait until 100K miles since you have to pay a substantial labor charge for this (the belt itself costs ~$20.)

The intake manifold service being referred to, if legitimate, is the issue where a liquid substance accumulates in the intake manifold below the throttle body. The service would be to clean that off. That would take about 5 minutes of labor time and a bit of throttle body cleaner sprayed into the area. Nevertheless, you don't need to worry about that, the liquid accumulation is normal. Have you noticed any worsening of mpg?

No, see above. The engine air filter is located upstream and filters dirt particles out of the air. The intake manifold is located below the throttle body, and routes air to the four cylinders of the engine.

 

My mother can do the replacement of engine and cabin air filters herself. She has absolutely no automotive service experience. As I recall, there aren't even any screws to unscrew. For both, it's like "unclip these 3 things, put in new filter, re-clip them." She was a little mad at seeing how much they wanted to charge us for 15 minutes of labor and $30 of filters (both bought online, MUCH cheaper than the parts dept). You can find discounted Toyota parts stores online. If you still need a discount part hookup, send me a message and I can give you a name.

 

Only do the recommended maintenance in your service manual from Toyota. Drive belts? ask them if its frayed or crack, then you replace. Otherwise, they're fine. dealers usually just try to replace them on a time basis.

As for intake manifold, i seriously doubt you need to do it. are you suffering poor mileage? Or is it the throttle body that needs service? In older cars where i didn't ever do throttle body cleaning, i got faulty EGR valves and things like that...

cabin air filter is relatively simple. there are plenty of instructions online.

 

Just a piece of anecdotal evidence: My '97 Mustang is still running on the original accessory belt and hoses after 17 years and 126k miles. The belt still looks brand new, which I attribute to the car rarely being driven in winter, so the pulleys aren't all rusted. There are marks on the tensioner which indicate if the the belt has stretched, and that was also okay last I checked. There's sections of coolant hose I can't reach / replace, so I'm willing to give the main hoses a visual check and squeeze test periodically, and they seem okay with no leaks.

The car has morphed into an experiment of 1 as to how little routine maintenance can be done. I change fluids and filters according to the owner's manual, and that's it. The car still has its original brakes, clutch, fuel filter, rear axle fluid (though that should have been changed), all light bulbs, power steering fluid, A/C freon, etc. Other than a couple replacement transmissions under warranty (!), the car has been trouble free.

Long story short: Beware the upsell for any maintenance not recommended by the manufacturer. Also, if you can avoid driving in road salt, you'll eliminate a lot of corrosion damage to pulleys, brakes, bodywork, etc.

 

We're in agreement on "intake manifold service." My money is on the dealer meant throttle body cleaning. Intake Manifold Service sounds big, scary, and critical. Uh ohh, don't do it, and bad stuff will happen. Scare selling tactic.

Toyota has no scheduled maintenance interval for the transaxle fluid. Do you not believe it should be changed? Do you know of any fluid that lasts forever? Would you believe Toyota if they said oil changes not needed? Instead, just check and add oil when needed? This is what they are saying for the transaxle.

The debate on when or if to get the transaxle changed should be driven by hard clinical data (oil analysis). It doesn't get better than this.
LINK to Professor Denenberg's oil analysis of the transaxle fluid.
The Professor concludes 30,000 miles for the first change. 60,000 miles for a second change, more or less. Then subsequent changes can see a longer interval. All to reduce wear.

Cost of an ATF change isn't really that much, if you DIY. 4 quarts ATF-WS cost me $7/bottle (Feb 2013). I installed a GoldPlug magnetic transaxle drain plug which came with a new crush washer. I also just flipped the fill plug washer around; new one will be installed at next drain/fill interval. Excluding tax, $28/30,000 miles = $.0009/mile. Would you agree that nine-ten-thousandths of a penny, per mile, is cheap? It will be even cheaper if one extends the interval longer, but why? The data from Professor Denenberg is too compeling.

Both Luscious and Arts Automotive repair shops in the Bay Area, recommend 30K replacement interval. Granted they are repair facilities and make money if you do the service. But do you believe a fluid lasts forever, especially a lubricant (motor oil or transmission oil)?

Luscious recommends HV Battery fan cleaning at 60K mile intervals; not a service item according to Toyota. Carolyn was ahead of Toyota on this. Other members too, as some have crafted a custom household HVAC filter to prevent buildup on the HV Battery fan. And what do you know, Gen3 Prius have a HV Battery fan filter (part# G92DH-47010). This filter should be made better, but its better than nothing.

When I changed my rear struts at 127K miles, I cleaned the HV Battery fan, since I had access to it. I was surprised at the level of dust build up on the fins, since no rear passengers were ever transported, no dogs either, and the car is rarely driven with the windows down.

 

It doesn't need to last forever, just longer than the car's expected lifetime. Gear oil (manual transmissions and rear ends) and power steering fluid are both good for the life of the car (with the exception being limited slip rear ends, which have clutches).

Technicians have been known to make mistakes doing routine maintenance, so there is a downside doing unnecessary maintenance.

The Prius transaxle is a tough call for me. Older ones have a known problem, but the design is just gears meshing with no clutches or other designed-to-wear parts (okay, 1 clutch to limit torque, but it never disengages). The old fart in me says to just dump in some 80w-90 and call it a day

 

That would be a big mistake since the correct fluid is Toyota ATF WS which has a viscosity slightly greater than water.

The usual transaxle failure mode is not mechanical but rather electrical, where a stator winding decides to short. The question is whether routine replacement of the transaxle ATF will result in a safer environment for the stator - fresher fluid will contain fewer metal contaminants encouraging a short circuit in the windings which can carry up to 500VAC.

Also the used transaxle ATF will contain high levels of Si, Fe and Cu so getting that out of the system will help the moving parts to last longer.

 

I'd swear my owner's manual sys 100k for transaxle fluid change.

 

If you can find that, scan the page and post.

 

Well, I was joking about using 80w-90 but you raise an interesting point about the stator. I assumed it was outside of the lubricated portion of the transaxle, in the same way that an aquarium filter has its windings hermetically sealed in plastic, with only the magnetic rotor exposed to the water.

 

No, the bottom of the stator windings definitely is exposed to ATF fluid. The windings are insulated and wrapped but from time to time, they will fail. Several members have posted photos showing disassembled transaxles and the scorched windings. Peak current flow can be ~40A or thereabouts.

 

Inspection only. Search TSB 0006-11

"ATF-WS does NOT require any flushing or changing during the life of the vehicle"

 

^ You'll get a lot of pushback on that. My take: do a first change quite early, then subsequent changes at a longer interval. It is cheap and easy to do.