blown head gasket...where do I go from here?

Do you check the oil level on a regular basis? Does the engine consume oil?

 

$30k for 177k of trouble-free miles is 17 cents a mile. Not a terrible number by any means.

Every car has its useful life. Typically, 150K-200K is “typical life” for most passenger cars. Toyota’s obligation ended a long time ago when the powertrain warranty ended at 60K.

Sorry.

 

Well....I'm sorry that you have this problem but as stated above, Toyota held up their end of the bargain.
The reason your car was $30,000 was all of the options.
I suspect that you haven't been maintaining the car like the owner's manual says you should AND yet the car still gave you 9 years and almost 180,000 miles of dependable service.
I know it stings a little bit to hear that, and I'm sorry.....but frankly you have to learn a little bit about, and properly maintain ANY car otherwise you might just as well trade cars in every 4-5 years and be saddled with car payments for the rest of your life.

OK....
SO....
If you repair the car, it's still good for most of 100,000 MORE miles....but like it is with people, the older the car gets, the more you are going to have to pay for care and maintenance, and the closer you are to "the big one.."

If you get another car?
Find out about the things that you have to do to keep them on the road for 250,000 miles....or more.
Every car.....Honda's, Mercedes, etc ALL have life cycles and maintenance schedules that you have to deal with if you want them to last for more than 150,000 miles or so.
Toyota's are better than most actually, but you still gotta take care of them.

You have to TAKE OWNERSHIP of the ownership thing, and not just drop by the dealer whenever you think about it, throw them the keys and tell them to do it.

Car payments are cheaper.

It's a known problem.....with a known solution.
This happens with many cars out on the bleeding edge of efficiency.
The G3's are more efficient than the G2's were.
The G4's madde improvements over the G3's.

In both cases, YOU took care of your car well enough for it to give you the 9 years and 177,000 mles that you got.

That's actually pretty good....BOTH for you and Toyota.

Good Luck!

 

Let us know if he needs help. There are a few of us on this site, including myself, who have done the repair.

 

Yep, blame the operator, classic.

I find the above amusing since it seems to be a brand specific attitude only if it’s a Toyota causing trouble.

Also I don’t remember the manual listing “transmission fluid changes”, catch cans, 40 weight oil or 5000 mile oil changes.

Daily Oil checks and top offs are another nice you should have, like checking air pressure every day and inspecting treads.

I think we need to step back and consider 2010 may have just been a bad year, most modern cars have one and some items listed as daily, during normal operation really should not need to be on a decent quality car, even one with over 100,000 miles (it’s not 1980 after all)

Ah well

 

Typically, coolant will leak into the cylinder(s) when the engine is off. During start up, the engine will attempt to burn off this coolant (and coolant is not combustible) so there will be a misfire until the coolant is burnt off. Due to the design of the damper on this engine, misfires will cause a very strange rattle type noise.

 

I was thinking that since you've been with us since 2016 that you might have read enough posts about this problem to be familiar with it.
As I've often said, there's a fundamental difference between car maintenance, and car repair.
There are also different maintenance philosophies that some people adopt when a car is most of the way through its economic service life.

So....
First of all, if this were 1980 (I was driving then too) people would be standing in a line four blocks long to buy an average priced car that would last 180,000 miles with no repairs, minimal maintenance and a 10,000 mile oil change interval.
Also, if you were familiar with the Warranty and Maintenance guides that were issued with the 2010's you might recall that the oil check periodicity is 30 days or 1,000 miles.
Not daily.
The reason that I usually mention reducing the OCI to 5,000 miles for people that practice closed-hood maintenance is that this reduces the chances that the oil sump volume will be diminished enough to seriously compromise the oil or cause lubrication problems.
I do not remember advising people to club up to 10w40, and I think that most people familiar with G3s would recommend that a driver should do nothing else until they quantify their oil burn rate and verify that it's not really a leak.

The G3, like many other first model years have a LOT more problems than just the EGR circuit!!!
I remember a warranty adjustment for the inverter.
The oil sump is about a quart too small.
The piston rings have issues.
They have a famous leak in the timing chain cover gasket.

I'm sure that I've mentioned others but those are the ones I remember.
(Jessica, if you're still listening to all of this silliness and you guys take the head off, get somebody to look at the timing chain cover!!!)

2010 was NOT the best year for Priuses, and yet the two that I've put 200,000 miles on have been curiously repair-free, and I say this as a person who hasn't owned a Toyota in decades and absolutely DO NOT plan on EVER visiting a Toyota dealership EVER again.

However (comma!!)
I'd buy a used G3 anytime!
G2's were pretty good too.

"Problem cars' like those were very rare in 1980 and ARE very rare in the 20-teens.

 

All of the info you need for the repair can be found here:
2011 Prius Head Gasket Failure at 185k - Summary - Bob Is The Oil Guy
https://priuschat.com/threads/2011-prius-headgasket-failure.204129/

 

I had a similar issue...bought 2014 Prius V from BMW dealer with 109k miles. Started to knock on startup....took it to Toyota and they said there was coolant in the engine and it needed to be replaced. I was pretty upset. I took it back to the dealer. They gave me a 330i loaner for 6 weeks and replaced the engine with a remanufactured one. Luckily it happened during the first 3000 miles while it was under the dealers resale warranty. I would recommend getting an extended warranty if buying a used car with mileage over the manufacturer’s warranty period (. In this case 100k miles). Even if it was past the 3000 mile warranty I would have complained to the dealer that I’d tell everyone about their shady dealings if they didn’t make it right. Luckily it didn’t come to that. Good luck.

 

A 2010 Prius v? Is the car a station wagon? The Prius v is and was first available in 2011 as a 2012 model.

 

Confusing nomenclature. The "v" for 2010 and 2011 should be read as "Trim 5", the highest available. The OP's car is a liftback. This thread should probably be moved to the Gen 3 Forum.