Common Problems on Gen 3 at High Mileage

I don't believe you would be faced with a 50% chance of inverter issue. And even if you do, those things are so cheap on the used market, it wouldn't even be considered an issue.

The battery is a wear item, so it just comes with owning a Hybrid or electric car. Wheel bearings are also just wear items that can go along with brakes/shocks/suspension/tires/control arms/engine mounts/rust/paint deterioration etc.

 

I did the wheel bearings earlier this year. The rear are way easier to fix than the front. I ended up stripping the CV axles threads to get to the bearings and choose to put new ones in instead of buying a special die to fix the threads.

Then I found out the Head gasket was already blown from doing a leak down test.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Most of JC106's and bk2049's estimations seem overly pessimistic to me. In near a million miles on 4 cars, I've never had a control arm, engine mount, or wheel bearing failure, except the one wheel bearing that somehow took on water.

Does anyone really know the odds of head gasket failure within 300k if EGR components are not allowed to badly clog? That will depend somewhat on maintenance and driving habits.

Inverter failure might not be very expensive, as far as the part(s), (especially if covered by the warranty extension), but indirect costs could be high if it leaves you stranded far from home.

 

I had a Gen 2 that had wheel bearings go out and now I just changed the wheel bearings on a Gen 3... I think if you live anywhere where they put salt on the roads... just expect the bearings to go out.

I would also add that I agree with the Car Care Nut... Oil changes at 6 months/5,000 miles is what saves the engine. I was doing annual at like 15,000 miles with the highest quality of synthetic oil I could find that marketed I could... I paid the price for following that line of thought.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

@ASRDogman is closing in on 400k IIRC, and yeah he’s keeping up the EGR cleaning. Without the cleaning, head gaskets fail around 150k~200k.

 

Part replacements are really up to the driver, what they can tolerate. For example a bad control arm (bushing mostly), it won't disable your car and you can continue driving. Bad engine mount will give you vibrations, but still not a replacement item if you can tolerate it. I think being too optimistic on the longevity of a Toyota product, can cause big issues, especially with owning hybrids.

 

Brake Booster is probably more like 85% before 300k miles. Cost is likely $2,000 to $3,000. Head gasket is 100%.

 

1. The brake booster depends on which one. The revised version that got the campaign is good.
2. Head gasket is a kind of lottery, some have some don't and most of them are pre-2015 models.
3. Oil consumption is often pre-2014 do 10k miles/1 year interval. If we do 5k miles/6 months interval, some pre-2014 are good and do not consume oil.
4. Inverters are under recalls in many-year ranges. So, it is being fixed. 2010-2014
Toyota Recall J0V: Hybrid System May Shutdown And Cause Stall — 2011 Prius | CarComplaints.com

If it consumes oil, don't buy it. The catalytic converter fails next, more expensive than head gasket repair.

 

a/c compressor $2,500.

 

I know a couple dozen people with >300,000 miles on their gen 3's - virtually all use their cars for business (couriers, real estate photographers, taxi/rideshare drivers, insurance adjusters, solar sales, etc)

~75% of them have replaced a head gasket. The 25% who have not blown a head gasket tend to be long distance highway drivers (none of them do any EGR maintenance).

~50% of them have replaced their hybrid battery. The 50% who have not had a bad battery tend to have garaged cars and do more
flat highway driving. Those whose cars experience larger temperature swings (especially those who park in the sun on 120F days) and do more city & mountain driving pretty much all have had to replace their batteries.

0% have had a brake booster/actuator fail. I would never have heard of this issue if I hadn't read about it on Priuschat. I asked my local hybrid shop and they've only seen 2 Gen3s (they see it more often on Gen2s & 1st gen HiHys, but still not anywhere near a majority).

~10% have replaced a wheel bearing (or bearings). These tend to be drivers who corner aggressively or drive on poor-quality roads with high tire pressures. I'd say about 1/2 have experienced the Prius driver's side CV-axle clicking under regen, but only a couple replaced it.

Only 1 replaced an inverter (under warranty). They drive mountains at higher speeds and experience large temperature variations.

I don't know anyone who had to replace an AC compressor.

A number of people have to top off oil between changes, but that's not unusual for high mileage cars. Those with severe oil consumption ( >1qt per 1,000 miles) tend to clog catalytic converters which are extremely expensive to replace in CARB states. One of these guys drives with a cheap cat and only installs his factory cat when he needs to pass smog.

 

He may be saying all gen3s that had their failing brake boosters replaced by Toyota received better units. Believe it or not, some shops and owners replaced their bad boosters with used units even when the unlimited mile tsb was still in effect.

All production hatchbacks and v wagons through 2015 were eligible for repairs. So all of them may have been flawed from the factory.

It appears the v wagon eligibilty excludes the 2016 and 2017s, so those two gen3 years may have been built with better units.

Brake boosters are not all interchangeable in gen3s. The hatchbacks were different than the v wagons. Wheel size made a difference in part numbers for the master cylinder portion. So buying used can be tricky if the donor vin is not available.

The hatchbacks were gen4 in 2016. They used a different style brake booster system.

 

hard to say, maybe 50%? just a guess

 

Two dozen is a small sample size, and it obviously wasn't a rigorously controlled study, but nevertheless, that's the nearest I've seen yet to good data on the prevalence of these supposedly common problems. Thanks

I haven't experienced any of them yet, despite living among foothills, parking in the southern sun every day, and the dubious condition of our roads.

 

it's impossible to even make a good guesstimate of failure rates

 

Toyota would have the best data but they are not going to make it public. Even the independents who repair multiple of each every week are not extremely useful if you try to extrapolate their data.

When you factor in 95% of these cars are out of service by 200k miles, the remaining are either good or their owners pour the resources into them to keep them running. I am in the second group. Not much diy but I know what is eligible for Toyota coverage (at least at the time) and where to go for reasonable pricing from independents who see more high mileage issues than the dealers. One thing is certain, gen3 has a boatload of issues compared to gen2 or gen4 and especially conventional Toyotas.

 

agreed