Pics: EGR pipe at 230k miles

Good idea to inspect and clean.

Now you have an idea of the whole circuits condition, which will be littered with carbon deposits .

Next step would be to clean the intake manifold and egr valve and cooler.

If you need help, let me know.

 

To replace the valve the service department must have had that pipe in their hands. Those guys were obviously "mailing it in". I would show those pics to the service manager.

If he's not interested, time to talk to to Toyota.

 

How many miles on your Prius?

 

I'd vote yes. To just go in there, put a fresh valve in that carbon-clogged mess: completely unprofessional.

 

Deposits wil return(and will for the life of the car as the exhaust gas has carbon in it). Replacing the valve will only get one component. You got a second component. But until all are cleaned or replaced, the same behavior you experienced can reccur.

I pool my cleaning / replacement of the cooler with the spark plugs and engine coolant to reduce time soent in clean up or removing the windshield wiper cowling. But can be done off this cycle.

Keep us posted .

 

While it leaves the deposits there, there are also many occurrences where the dealer takes a "professional liberty" to do something and then the retort comes back as "why did you do that?". The right thing to do would be to advise the customer of the situation, replace the valve and suggest further work.

But that didn't happen here.

 

I think @Raytheeagle and his crew have a better grasp of what's happening than Toyota right now. Or maybe not...

If the pipe is bad, the EGR cooler (other side of the replaced valve, upstream) will be pretty much solid carbon inside. The intake manifold too, that the pipe feeds in, should be pulled off and cleaned.

While waiting to talk to the dealership, have a look at @NutzAboutBolts videos, pinned at top of maintenance sub-forum. In particular the EGR pipe cleaning, intake manifold cleaning, and EGR cooler cleaning.

 

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I think .

 

Time for you to open a Mobile Bay Area Hybrid repair service.

 

If it were only that easy.

I still have a day job which is slowly eating away at any discretionary time left .

But wrenching on a car is a good way to channel energy.

 

Maybe weekend Mechanic?

 

btw, I ordered the OCC, I will film it once I get it.. hopefully it'll turn out good as I hope. lol

 

That maybe doesn't read the way I intended. What I meant to say is that maybe Toyota is well aware of the problem, waiting on it to "go away"?

 

it will, in 5 or 10 years. to be fair, it is 230k.

 

Everything has a life span. If you can extend it, why not?

Congrats on 57k by the way.

 

agreed, i just can't lay it at toyota's feet. at 100k, absolutely.