Things that will likely break my car that I do on a daily basis anyway

1a. It must warm coolant to 40°C/104F. You can read here about warmup stages.
2a. Powering the brake accumulator pump.
3a. do not know.
4a. If you remove the wheel you can look closely.

At least this is what I know.

 

I will answer the serious questions

1a. Why does ICE always kick a couple moments after I start the car?

To warm up the engine so its ready to go with lower emissions. Also circulates the oil and essentially checks most things on the gas engine. No use getting a mile down the road in ev just to find out the engine has problems.

2a. When opening only driver's door, what is electric sounding hummmmm that emits?

Brake hydraulics pumping up the accumulator for your brake by wire system. Without it working you will probably have a wreck.

3a. Why does the ICE shake gently vibrate? Did Toyota not bolt it down good enough or is that just how cars are lol?

Four cylinder engines are never super smooth. A V6 is better, a V8 is often the best. When you driving you will never notice the engine vibration because the car has no sound insulation. You have to buy a GS450h Lexus with sound deadening and better suspension for a quiet smooth ride. But your car uses less gas.

4a.How do I know when I need brake pads? Can I visually inspect them myself?[/QUOTE]

You can visually inspect them but the dealer should have noted the pad thickness on their oil change inspection report. If you drive like a sane person the brakes can easily last 150k miles or more. Mine have 250k and are still acceptable.

Drive carefully and the car might last a few more years. Otherwise you will likely ruin the engine or your life and the car might not be worth fixing. Don't drink or get high and drive. Then you have no ride.

 

You are putting a lot of stress on the suspension components. If you want the car to last, you should drive it like it was was designed to be driven. It was not designed for sideways slides.

Oh, and you don't mention oil changes. It seems like every kid burns up at least one car by not changing the oil on the recommended schedule. If you drive 20,000 miles without changing the oil and checking all fluids you stand a good chance of burning up the engine.

 

Hardly any. A Prius CVT does not employ any friction devices- part of why they are so efficient in the first place. Hard launches will put some thermal stress on your battery, inverter and motor-generators. They are all designed to handle a fair amount of that anyway, so with a reasonable cool-down between runs you can do quite a lot of this without harming the car.

Out of your list, this is closest to what the Prius was built to do all day every day.

 

It will probably bring end-of-life for the HSD faster than driving like your grandma would, but then, you bought the car, not your grandma.

However, you should probably forget that whole idea of turning TC off. One of the functions of TC in a Prius is to protect the car itself from overrevving within the transaxle when wheel traction is lost. There are strong warnings in the manuals about the risks of damage with that turned off if you should happen to overpower your traction, and if that's not something that 'happens' but something you're doing on purpose, defeating that protection would not be smart.

 

clean the egr circuit before you blow the head gasket

 

yes, that service is considered more of a 'wallet flush'

check out @NutzAboutBolts youtube channel, egr cleaning is a physical process, and add an oil catch can as well

 

EGR cleaning info in my signature.

I was going to comment on the title: "Things that will likely break my car that I do on a daily basis anyway", but in light of your list, my comments kinda pale, lol. Anyway:

If you're parked in a secure garage, DON'T lock the car. There's been a few reports of the door lock mechanisms failing, so I figure this might help.

Another:

Slow to a dead-crawl for any-and-all speed bumps, might protect the suspension and wheel bearings.

 

Sounds like you have pretty cool parents.
I actually got a pretty good laugh at 'Scandinavian flicks' but back in the day we used to call them pendulum turns, most "rally" cars had the right number of pedals (3) the right kind of parking brake (hand) AND the drive wheels were on the other end of the car.

When I was knocking holes in the ocean, Scandinavian flicks perhaps meant something else.

So.....
SOMEDAY, you're EITHER going to have to learn to swing wrenches, or you're going to have to learn how to swing wrenches enough to pay somebody else to swing them FOR you.

Otherwise?
You will wind up paying good money for 'Something called a BG Guel Induction service' which amounts to not-much-more than (maybe) putting a can of fuel cleaner in your tank.

Here's the Warranty and Maintenance Guide for your car:
https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/omms-s/T-MMS-11Prius/pdf/T-MMS-11Prius.pdf

The most important thing is to make sure that your oil level is checked as often as the maintenance guide says, which is every 30 days or 1,000 miles - which means that you should have checked it about 20 times by now.
Since 16-year-olds have a pretty good fecal detector, and I was 16 years old for a whole year I will admit that.....you-re right.
I don't check MY oil based on that schedule, but rather I do so every third tank or so.....

Other maintenance items are set up on some multiple of 5,000 mile periodicities, and they're pretty much ALL DIY friendly with just about $100 worth of tools and some classes at the University of YouTube.

Example:
Every 1,000 miles:

You can use your car's VIN to find out what's been done with the car and what's not been done.
AND our own @NutzAboutBolts has AUTHORATIVE vids on everything from how to change your fob battery or get into your car when the 12v battery dies to doing the EGR pipe cleaning - which is something that you WILL either be doing yourself of paying someone else to do.......unless you want to watch a video on how to replace a head gasket!

Here's an easy one to get you started!

'Like' and maybe 'sub' if the vids help you out.
EVEN if you never open the hood on this car, watching the vids will help you know something about what you're paying somebody else to do for you!

Good Luck!

 

Congrats on your first car. I wish I had Prius when I was 16. LOL. At your age, and the car being 10 years old with 100,000 miles, I will just say, drive safely and enjoy your life. The car will not outlast you, but it will be a great learning tool for sure.

 

Most induction services are a boat load of solvents forced through the intake into the cylinders to attempt an engine "clean."

Independent tests prove otherwise. Fuel injectors sometimes can benefit from a solvent flush but almost never need it because all gasoline has detergent additives to keep clean injectors clean. Which is the key. Dirty valves and injectors are rarely cleaned on car with simple solvents.

But the gen3 Prius engines are flawed from the factory. Especially 2010-2014. Flawed pistons, rings and egr coolers. Plus marginal cylinder wall cooling, intakes and pcv systems. The pistons and rings often cause excessive oil consumption and blowby. All combined, carbon build up is massive from the egr cooler to the intake passages to the cylinders and valves. Only disassembly and serious work cleans these parts. Piston and piston ring replacement is the only oil consumption and blowby solution once it starts, usually on engines over 125k miles. Oil changes at twice the recommended interval without fail may help long term engine life.

So keeping your engine running is a bigger challenge than trying to launch a Prius at a stoplight.

Induction services claim to:

• Remove deposits from valves and combustion chambers
• Clean stubborn oil deposits
• Clean micro passageways in today’s gasoline engines
• Improves spark plug life
• 
  But independent testing on carboned up engines proves otherwise.

 

Nope.

As our President often says....
"Here's the thing..."

The 2010-2015 Prius EGR circuit has a design flaw that was not/is not addressed by the maintenance schedule.
It's one of those things that CAN cost about $700 but only requires some time....some tools....and about $10 worth of cleaning agents.
I've even heard of people using EZ-off oven cleaner.

Watch a couple of vids and they will loop you in.
If you change your oil more frequently (@5,000 miles perhaps) install an oil catch can, and maybe clean the pcv......this will reduce the problem SOME SAY.

If your car was properly taken care of you probably have a little time to noodle this out.
Don't sweat about it......just LEARN about it.

ANOTHER thing that is not in your warranty and maintenance guide is a CVT fluid change.
Read about 10 of the longest threads in this forum for more info.

Dealerships WILL do this.....but my advice to to try and find (or BE!) an independent mechanic.

Best!

 

After doing it yourself one time, you can multiply the hours by your dealer's shop rate, and see why even if they offered the service, it wouldn't be practical unless your name is Jay Gatsby. Who didn't drive a Prius.

 

Maybe for the best. If they did agree, it’d be way too expensive and wasteful. And likely incomplete. If you’re interested, able to DIY this, again: see the link in my signature. DIY is really the only practical way to go still.

Addendum: if viewing on a phone, signature may not show, but holding the phone in landscape orientation may reveal (hidden) signature.