2011 Prius, typical problems, thinking of replacing engine

Can I ask you a question as to why you feel a car with 227,000 miles is a lemon? What other major problems have you had before this?

 

Look newer, much much newer. Ours is a 2010 and I am finishing up (hopefully tonight) installing a 2016 motor with 5800 miles. There is one mechanical mod to the block structure, you use your exhaust, EGR, intake, flywheel, Damper, front motor engine mount and waterpump. Mine has taken longer than it should have, but I went in and cleaned the engine bay and wiring, then rewrapped all of the wiring looms. @Raytheeagle @cnc97 and @Ragingfit posted an entire video series on Youtube under "fixThatPrius" documenting the swap. I was lucky that my engine came with the entire wiring harness and many hoses. It can be done and isn't that bad, just tedious. I will detail more on mine later.

 

I agree with FnRedPrius.... except I wouldn’t necessarily go with a gen4 engine as it involves quite a bit more work to swap it into a gen3 car. If it were me, I’d look for a low mileage ‘15 engine (I think improved pistons and rings) and then completely scrub the EGR system stem to stern on that engine before swapping it in your car.

 

2016 - 2019 would be a gen4 engine. You could use a gen4 engine.... BUT, it’s more involved to modify and swap into your gen3 car. I’m unsure how to know by VIN what the generation of the vehicle/engine might be.
I’m sure you could pay the mechanic doing the engine swap to make sure the EGR system is thoroughly cleaned....it’d be much easier to scrub with the engine out of the vehicle. And, in my opinion, it’s VERY important to have done. In other words, if you’re not doing the work yourself, choose a mechanic that you can trust to clean the EGR system- including the cooler. Optimally, you’d find a 2015 engine with less than 75k miles (an engine with less than 75k miles probably wouldn’t have been exposed to a seriously clogged EGR). I think some have theorized a severely clogged EGR can cause the engine to run hotter than normal and this may put the headgasket at risk. Cliff note version: buy a 2015 engine with low mileage and verify the EGR system is clean.

 

The mechanic can do the EGR cleaning but it is either time consuming or nasty. Using the OxyClean soakings are much cleaner but much slower as it takes several soak and rinse cycles. Using pressure is very messy as the exhaust byproducts mixed with the burnt oil are nasty and go everywhere. Then the tubes and EGR passages in the intake have to be thoroughly cleaned as well as the rest of the intake. The price to clean the EGR may be more than a new one.
The Gen IV transplant isn't as hard as I was afraid that it might be, but I was lucky that the engine I bought had the entire wiring harness and many of the hoses. There isn't that much more work transplanting a IV instead of a III. Most of the parts swaps involves most of the same parts that would have to be swapped anyway as most recycled engines do not come with those parts attached. The changes that have to be made are fairly simple thanks to the efforts of @cnc97 and @Ragingfit.
Those changes are:
Cut a nub off of the back of the head,
Extending the temp sensor wires by about 10 inches,
Add a T-connector to a present water line and run a new water line from that T-connector to the throttle body,
Re-route a heater hose,
Slight modification to the lower radiator hose by either adding a piece of conduit or purchasing a OEM "pipe" (
16577-37080) that is about $15-$20 online,
Move three ground connectors.
One other thing I did was heat one of the heater hose connections and move it to a little better angle to clear another outlet.



After reading the threads by @cnc97 and @Ragingfit and watching the latter's videos it added maybe a real hour to the job. In my reality it probably added 3-4 hours simply because I wasn't working towards book time, and few mechanics would have taken the time to clean the engine bay, clean and re-wrap the wiring looms, re-work and reattach the wiring harness mounts, and a few other bits of tidy work.
I was able to take a donor hose from the new engine and connect it to on original rather than using the 90 degree connector on the OEM.

I completed ours tonight, but I want to check a couple of things before I put SWMBO into the car. If the CEL doesn't clear in the AM I'll take it and have it checked and cleared, and the water pump was noisy so I want to check that out. I used the original water pump and I've heard issues that the 2016 doesn't play well with the 2010 system.

 

If you are having "all the same" Gen III issues, then a short diagnostic isn't going to reveal a head gasket. The cylinder misses can either be sporadic or consistent enough to keep the CEL on. The cure for the oil consumption is either a "piston soak" that may or may not work, or have various degrees of success but is a temporary solution. The permanent solution is a rebuild with later model pistons and rings, which also cures the blown head gasket. The vast majority of the time, I don't have any indications of the blown head gasket other than the occasional miss and coolant loss from time to time. The vast majority of postings ( as it seems ) to be this issue. I'm sorry that you are having this issue and seem to be stuck with the car. Luckily I have the ability to do mine and after hours and hours of research, I did mine. I haven't changed an engine in over 30 years and nothing other than racecars in 35. We paid $1600 for the engine with 5800 miles, and I bought a hoist and stand. In all, I have about $2K plus my time. Back when we had a shop, I would have added and hour for what I have done to ours. Many a time have we pulled one across the street to clean the engine compartment, then do it again after the engine is out.

I can't make that decision for you, but unless you have a pathway to get everything done, you may be having to compromise.

 

Try to find a 2015 engine because it has the revised rings/pistons so no oil burning issues. Should be able to find one with low miles (less than 50k) and it will drop right in.

It would be a good idea to add an oil catch can which is no big deal to install even if you aren’t very “mechanically inclined”. Drained the occ in the wifes daily 2015 last night and only got about 1 tablespoon of oil after 1.5k miles.

You will also need to clean the egr valve and egr cooler every 100k miles or so. No getting away from that on any gen 3 engine if you don’t want to have head gasket problems.

 

@FnRedPrius, you're only up the street from me. I'll be calling you if I ever need my car's engine swapped!!

I feel very fortunate because my 2010 has 143k miles and it has not burnt any oil at all. However, they're all highway miles so I guess that helps.

 

Just lemme know. The biggest thing I learned was I didn't need to take ALL my metric stuff over to my impromptu work table. I probably wasted most of my time looking thru the tools to find what I wanted. 99% of what I did was 10, 12, and 14MM.

I'd be for cleaning the EGR like some do voting, early and often. ( We aren't in 9th District ). I'm also going to look for a stud that I can use for the ground wires on the head since I wasn't thrilled with the outcome from drilling the first connector out and I don't like the appearance with it being on a valve cover bolt.

 

I would definitely find an engine from a 2015 with low mileage. Car-Part.com is another place you can try to search, or even eBay (look for LKQ sellers). If you have to pay someone for the swap, I would not seek a 2016-19 engine....too many unknowns if you have to pay someone to troubleshoot (and then it won't be worth the cost).

 

Dear maurakl, I do not mean to pick on you but as a mechanic if 16 years I have to ask, and I will not turn this into a rant but will state some ideas and opinions I have.
You have 227K miles on your vehicle which I assume has been mostly trouble free up till now, but you say its a lemon. So what is your expectation for how many trouble free miles you expected from this vehicle?
How long has your car been burning this large amount of oil? How did it start? How often did you check the oil prior to it starting to use this amount, and how often do you check it now?
When I worked for GM which was from 1998 until 2003 they were engineering a vehicle to last ~100K miles under normal use. They were trying to design a vehicle that was reliable, got reasonable fuel mileage, performed well in crash tests, looked decent, reasonable cost etc. Each engineering department had a task, and none of them got everything they wanted.
I personally think Toyota has done pretty well with the Prius. In my opinion the prius was designed as a hybrid and a certain driving style that goes along with it. My 2010 has 265K miles on it. It uses ~1/2qt every 10K miles. Part of the reason it does not use oil in my opinion pertains to my driving habits, one of which is keeping my speed under 70mph most of the time. I think the initial issue with these cars using oil is due to high vehicle and engine speeds, which was not the design for a hybrid vehicle. The high engine rpm overwhelms the PCV system and ends up sending oil into the intake system that gets burned. The engine starts to use oil. With a 10K oil change interval and owners that never open the hood to check levels the oil system gets low. Low oil level ends up starving the system and causing oil rings to overheat and get coked with burnt oil. Sticking oil control rings contribute to more oil usage as oil is not wiped from the cylinder and gets burned. Some of this burned oil ends up sticking to the top of the piston and cylinder head causing a rise in compression of the engine due to reduced headspace in the cylinder. This oil being burned travels down the exhaust system and ends up settling out in the EGR system since the EGR cooler allows it to condense out. As the EGR system gets plugged the combustion temperatures and pressures in the cylinder go up even more. This increase in temperature and pressure can eventually contribute to a failure of the head gasket.
Toyota through the years has had updates to oil control rings, head gasket design, intake manifold design etc.
You say "I feel like it is a lemon because it is a design problem that Toyota won't do anything about that is causing these problems. It is frustrating that they know this is a problem, yet won't fix it on our cars." I really don't see Toyota producing a car with known design problems. They like other manufacturers are always learning and trying to do better, and they do a good job in my opinion repairing. But no one manufacturer is perfect, and each customer has a different "Expectation". Mine must be too low.