I remember reading once that 2010 and 2011 Prius Gen 3 were worst for a head gasket. (I personally blew my head gasket on 2011 at 215k miles). I also thought I read that around 2012 or 2013 Toyota made some adjustments to the EGR system and these are less susceptible to blowing a head gasket, but still possible. Thinking about buying a 2012 with 140k miles under 10k and want to verify before hand. Thanks!
Okay, I must have been mistaken. EGR circuit cleaning straight away it is (if I go ahead with the purchase).
The EGR system is unchanged for all 3rd Gens.... there may be some updated part numbers for the EGR valve, intake manifold, etc. but the actual system never changed.
The EGR changes didn't happen until the 2016 redesign of the Liftback. I'm not sure that these changes ever made it to the 'v'. The earlier changes you may be thinking of, were pistons and rings as mentioned above.
there’s a good chance it’s somebody unloading a blown head gasket, maybe with a stop-leak product too. There was an EGR related warranty extension mailed to owners; I can look up the date in a bit. It’s pretty useless though. Yeah, a 3rd gen on or v, I’d recommend 100k miles (max!) for first time EGR cleaning, and 50k miles thereafter. This is same miles interval as engine coolant change btw, which might be convenient to do at same time. see first two links in my signature.
As always, thanks for your input Mendel. I think its critical that you pointed out it maybe somebody unloading their blown head gasket. I would never buy a Gen 3 from a private owner for this reason. I would be buying from a very highly rated used car dealership. I live in New York State and we have lemon laws in place where it comes with a 18,000 mile warranty. My dilemma is I drive for Uber. Everyday I am offline, is a day that I am losing money. I would be taking a chance with this purchase but I should also be able to pay it off entirely by the summer. That's all I need from it and would hope to get much more life out of it.
If doing a test drive, stipulate the car being stone cold, and see how it sounds during start up. Not sure, but maybe stop-leak product could be detected by inspection of small extract from engine coolant reservoir (look for blobs)?
No it doesn't, according to these Fact Sheets: https://ag.ny.gov/used-car-lemon-law-fact-sheet https://ag.ny.gov/consumer-frauds/used-car-lemon-law-fact-sheet The very longest warranty it gives is 4,000 miles or 90 days, for used cars having no more than 36k miles. No warranty for cars over 100k. Since the car you are looking at has 140k, it would have no used-car lemon-law warranty. The car must also be used primarily for personal use. Your Uber driving is a disqualifier.
If you can’t inspect car properly have a mechanic do it for you .. worth the regrets ... a few simple tests can detect issues immediately! Good luck...
