Can I prevent worse trouble w/misfire,oil, head gasket?

My 2010 Prius with about 160,000 is starting to burn a little oil. I hope to keep it running at least until the other car is paid off. (Plus new cars have those tasty wiring harnesses that mice/squirrels like to chew...plus I like to use something up instead of replacing it if I can) Just got the check engine light. Autozone read the codes for me: P0302, P0300, P0303, P0304 and repeat which are misfire codes. I do sometimes get a rattle on shutoff and weird noise on startup but only rarely. They suggested replacing the ignition coil on cylinder 2 but after reading about it here I have questions.

I’m about in the range for excess oil consumption and blown head gasket problems and I hope it’s not too late to prevent them. I live way out in the country and I don’t want to break my car trying to fix something myself because how would I get to the store to buy parts? But if there is something I can do on my own I want to try. I came up with four things to try - do you think I’m on the right track or should I be looking at something else? Really appreciate any advice about this.

1: To begin with - how do you change the oil in this car without access to a lift? I can’t fit underneath, so I take it somewhere. The local dealership is cheaper when they have coupons. The BG products look great. I’d like to try the EGR treatment. But if I’m not changing the oil myself I will ask the mechanic if they can do it, or find someone else who can.

2: BG MOA for hybrids, this I can buy and add on my own, same as the 44K.

3: The oil catch can looks like a great idea. Is it too late to install one? It looks like it would at least keep the problem from getting worse. And is this something I can do at home? I’m not comfortable taking my engine apart....

4: How difficult is it to clean the EGR? I read to do it through the intake manifold...is there a simple way to clean it without taking a lot of things apart? Would doing the EGR treatment be enough for a first step?

Well, that’s a lot of questions ... trying to figure this out as soon as I can before real trouble happens.

 

Looks like it’s over my head. I looked for certified mechanics on the BG website and found one with a stellar reputation. Gonna take the car over next week and have them look at the misfire, and then do a cleaning / oil change.

Doesn’t the car need to be level to drain the old oil? I don’t trust working under a jack, I know someone who had a corvette dropped on him when the concrete blocks collapsed as he was working under it. I have a couple metal ramps but if i drive the car up on them it will be quite far from level.

 

Just that I learned that cars can fall on you...having a car up on the jack seems too untrustworthy. But come to think of it I do have a couple jack stands somewhere...but i also have a couple decent ramps and I do trust them with good chocks. And access to many tools.

 

Thanks Mendel, good advice.

I decided to drive over to the parts store to see if they would reset the codes for me, and then see how long it took the check light to come back on. The car still runs very smoothly. But it was very dirty from driving on gravel roads so I stopped by a wash-it-yourself place and hosed off most of the dirt. When I started the car again the light was off. So, washing the car clears the misfire series.

Seriously...I guess this is one of the cases like loose gas cap where the code clears after three or four 20 minute trips. Going to get the oil changed at the dealer because they had a good coupon...$145 for three oil changes and tire rotations. Then think about what to do. I did get the EGR letter from Toyota way back but at the time the bad dealer I used to go to said they couldn’t reproduce the problem, and at 160k I’m way out of warranty.

I did read threads about taking off the EGR to check the pipe and it looked like something I could screw up....some bolts hard to reach and I could damage it if I don’t do it just right. I read somewhere about just assuming it’s dirty, getting a replacement part all cleaned and ready to go, and having the mechanic just swap it out.

I do use only top tier gas, drive like an old lady, and the vast majority of drives are 25 to 50 miles at a time, mostly on the freeway, so maybe there’s a chance it’s not too gunked up and could be cleaned with a BG treatment. Does that work on a really sludged up EGR system or is that more of a preventative thing?

 

Got no cement. Gravel driveway but it’s compacted pretty hard at this point. Could put down piece of 3/4 plywood maybe?

 

The spark plugs were changed a couple years ago at 120k miles...and after reading and watching videos there’s no way I will attempt to remove the EGR and clean it myself. As a substitute, there’s a local-ish shop on BK’s authorized list that can do the Fuel Injector Cleaning for $153. Is that the typical price? And is it better than just adding BK 44 to the gas now and then? Or is it just wishful thinking on my part?

 

Where do you get BK products? I see them for sale on Amazon but BKs website is pretty insistent that they don’t sell to consumers. Are there counterfeit versions being sold?

 

It’s such an infrequent problem that it will be difficult to diagnose cheaply. The EGR is a good bet since I did get a letter from Toyota about it, meaning my car is one of the ones with poor IM design. If it were an active consistent problem maybe a mechanic could guess right the first time. Otherwise it’s “let’s start with the injector since that’s cheapest “ then “oh that wasn’t it let’s replace the EGR” to “well maybe it’s the head gasket, let’s take the engine apart to see”. I hate intermittent problems. Thus should have been fixed the first time I complained about it two years ago but at the time that dealer “couldn’t verify the issue”. Maybe I’ll write to Toyota. I did that years ago when a part of my Sienna failed because of poor design. Went up the food chain with no luck until finally I wrote directly to the company president who told someone “take care of this”.