New owner of a 2010 Prius package 3. 173k miles on the clock. Just wanted to say to say this is a great community with wonderful knowledge. I lurked a lot before joining.
Previous owner had the EGR cooler replaced before I bought it. It does still have the dreaded P0401 code though. Passed emissions before the code came back up. The shop that 'fixed' the issue told me to bring it back at my leisure.
Yeah that doesn't sound right. Full cleaning of the EGR circuit involves the EGR cooler, valve, connector pipe AND the intake manifold. The latter receives the EGR gasses, flows them through a gallery to small tributaries at each intake port. All of these components can and do clog. It's labour intensive to clean, most shops aren't really on top of it, and it would cost you a fortune in labour if they did it right. Watch @NutzAboutBolts videos, pinned at top of 3rd gen maintenance forum. There's a list at the top, you want to watch the EGR pipe cleaning (good first one), the full EGR clean, and the intake manifold clean. Also worthwhile: the oil catch can install.
Unfortunately you're probably correct. It's currently too cold in Ohio to work on this prius. I will take it back to get it 'looked at' but in all reality, I'll order a new intake manifold off Ebay and go from there. I currently have a 2011 Sienna that is a gas hog, a recent trip in the Prius to Detroit and back yielded 40 mpg to and from 75+ mph. No complaints here.
You shouldn't need an intake manifold unless yours is somehow damaged -- and you'd have vacuum leak codes if it was. Since it's so labor intesive to clean a clogged EGR Cooler, some folks buy a spare and clean it beforehand so they can simply swap it in when the do the full proceedure @Mendel Leisk mentioned above. It's not absolutely necessary to have a spare EGR cooler, but it makes the job easier if you do.
+1 to the above. Cleaning the components isn’t bad and a pressure washer cleans the egr cooler in 5 minutes. Might save you some coin for the next repair. Good luck and keep us posted .
i just got a 2010 with 7k miles, but now i'm worried about this EGR thing and oil consumption in my future. edit sorry yes 50k miles (paid 7k with hail damage)
7K is a typo, should be 50K? That's still young; a good time to just check the EGR pipe though, and gear up. FWIW, I've only got 80K kms (50K miles) now, did the full EGR clean about 18 months back, a little premature, but worthwhile I'd say. Have you watched the @NutzAboutBolts videos, pinned at top of 3rd gen maintenance forum? Are you reasonably comfortable to DIY? It's "moderately" involved, but reasonably easy to do. The sand pounder: it should not be necessary to do stuff like this to maintain your car, but there it is. Toyota screwed up, on this first EGR implementation. Exhaustive thread on the subject: EGR & Intake Manifold Clean Results | PriusChat
edit sorry yes 50k miles (paid 7k with hail damage) okay i'll start researching how to do the EGR clean thanks! I'm handy. i have an old VW bus and do all kinds of stuff engine related.
You'll be fine then. I've never done anything serious, but managed to bumble through EGR and intake manifold cleaning. And Oil Catch Can install.
Oil catch can coming soon. Any recommendations? I'm really debating whether or not to buy a used egr/cooler unit off ebay for backup. Any inputs? So far I'm really liking the Prius. It's not fast so I feel that I'm never in a hurry anywhere. My son is pretty excited when I told him this will be out fishing car. We'll be traveling all over Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York in chase of fish.
