1.8L starting rattle, knock, events

If anyone on here has taken it to the dealer and demonstrated it to the dealer tech and then the dealer did nothing. The next step would be to contact Toyota Customer Service and log a complaint based on the dealer documenting the problem and doing nothing.

If anyone has done all of these steps and Toyota has continued to do nothing, then I will agree with your POV.

Bob Wilson was working on documenting this at one time and never completed his work.

 

What do you expect a dealer to do other than log it? If an event can only be recreated maybe kinda sometimes and it takes a very special order of events to do it and has caused no apparent damage or impact on driveability there is nothing the dealer can do about that.

I do recall at least one person reporting some portion of the engine replaced after this but that seems an incredible waste of resources, not to mention probably solves nothing...

 

How do you think TSB's come about?

 

A question isn't really an answer. You've still not identified what you think a dealer should do when presented with this problem. Tear the engine apart?

 

I would expect them to at least try to determine why the engine performs the way it does. I would suspect that Toyota knows what the problem is with as many complaints as we have seen on PC. As you say the solution to the problem may be more than they are willing to spend to resolve.

I was simply trying to tell someone that says that they can repeat the problem at will to take it to the dealer.

 

Well after all this time Toyota still stays very quiet about this problem, pretty scary when a company behaves like that

Why they never mention that in the PRIUSCHAT shows?

 

It's reappeared under precisely the same series of events 3 times for me. None were on purpose for sure, I'm not in the habit of purposely creating a racket in my engine bay to prove a point.

With my luck, if I went thru all the days of trouble to "do it" for a dealer it wouldn't work.

If it did do it then I'd expect them to write it up and tell me not to do it again. I'm not interested in losing my car to exploratory surgery.

Doesn't seem worth the trouble or potential damage.

 

Thanks for your experimentation.... hope it wasn't destructive testing.

To date, it appears the majority of Gen III owners reporting this issue here on PriusChat have had it occur under the conditions you've outlined. However, when it happened to me it was not particularly cool overnight... probably only around 60º.

By thoroughly completing the ICE warm up cycle before any cold soak shutdowns we appear to have avoided any further rough start instances. If this is a workable solution, why wouldn't Toyota issue some sort of explanation as to why it's happening or if it is causing any foreseeable engine damage?

Thus far, I've logged at least 192 PriusChatters reporting this issue over the last year and a half and nine of them have stated they are 2011 Gen III owners. The fact that new Prii coming off the assembly lines are still affected by this engineering glitch is especially concerning.

 

Never happened to me, 46,000 miles here.

 

Don't know what the dealer should do, but I know what I didn't do: I didn't buy a '11 Prius in part because of this issue, and the way Toyota failed to—as a company—stand behind their product.

And I wouldn't until I knew for sure that it's no longer an issue.

It's all but certain there was/is a defect with the VVTi controller. This is what the TSB addresses. Toyota admitted officially that it's an issue with other of their four cylinder engines, but they just never quite got around to admitting it's a problem with the Prius, too.

Instead, they simply stepped aside and laid this whole thing in the dealer's lap—really the customer's, since the burden is now on the customer to reproduce it, then force the dealer into action.

In the meantime, prospective and current owners get to wonder if it's been rectified, or not.

Frankly, I'd be damned upset if I paid $30,000 for a new car and had to be careful moving it out of my garage when it's cold.

 

Very well said...

 

Outside temp seems to be a minor factor, the car itself must be cold... The air temp need only be cold enough that the ICE kicks in on startup.

At least that's my experience.

 

I think it's unfortunate you'd not buy it based on this. It happens so darn irregularly and likely is nothing substantial to worry about even if it is strange. In 30k I've had it happen 2-3 times.

Agree, my first occurrence was on a summer morning, temps must have been 50+. This has to do with a cold shut down more than ambient temps IMO.

 

Yup.

 

Experienced the engine-rattle-at-start-up for the first time last evening.
2010 Prius II with 20,000 miles.
Time: 5:00 PM
Outside air temp: 60 F
Vehicle had been started and moved ~ 100 feet about 4 hours before.

I have never experienced this event before. It was as if the engine timing was out of whack, or some of the spark plugs were not firing.
Only lasted for a few seconds. Drove about 5 miles to a restaurant; did not repeat 45 minutes later when I drove home.
Ugghhh!

 

Just had it for the first time on Saturday. Very much like your case we were going out to eat in our 2010 Prius II, it had been moved on the driveway a few hours before, it rattled for a few seconds then didn't reoccur later or this morning.
Odo: about 38k miles.
Temp: around 40F.

 

I agree with others that this is certainly not a reason to not buy a Prius. I had this happen twice in the first 5k miles until I understood what causes the events. I just am careful not to short-cycle the engine during its warmup cycle and have not had this happen since. When it happened the second time I just floored the accelerator and it quit immediately.

I plan to keep my Prius for many years but would buy another one tomorrow if something happened to this one.

 

Thank you all for your troubleshooting skills and for sharing your experiences. I bought a 2011 Prius II last month (3100 miles by now) and just experienced this for the first time. The car was cold when I moved it into the garage last night. When I moved it out this morning, it clattered. I shut it down. Started it again. Clatter. Started it again to show my husband. Clatter, then normal engine sounds. It was fine on the 18 miles to work. I will try using EV from here on out when moving short distances in the colder weather.

Just an aside...I did call the dealer on my way to work and he said that he'd have to duplicate the problem. Humph. You have given me great peace of mind--I had just put a blanket, etc. in my car for the winter, but who expects to hear such a racket from your engine compartment before the first payment is even due?

Again, many thanks.

 

Good luck with that, I'm afraid. In its infinite wisdom the Prius will more times than not reject an attempt to enter EV when the car is cold. It doesn't even have to be particularly cold outside, but if the car has sat for a while and all systems are at ambient temps odds are pretty good it won't let you enter EV, so even moving it a few feet will force the ICE (internal combustion engine) to come on.

 

Yeah your right about that. There should be another button labeled "I really, really don't want the ICE to start". But the last time it happened to me I remebered to floor the accelerator and it stopped the racket right away. So flooring the accelerator seems to be the ticket.