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Misfires, you most likely overheated your Prius

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Main Forum' started by Lino, Oct 30, 2023.

  1. Lino

    Lino Member

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    This applies to all Prius most likely unless your car has a mechanical water pump.
    Too bad I can not post for other generation owners to read.
    Anyway my 2013 going on 450 thousand miles, has had its share of issues, and after reading what others claim the cause of misfires I have wasted time thinking these ideas would cure the misfires.
    What I have learned, the misfires are most likely a head gasket that is leaking coolant into the cylinder and causing the misfire.
    Yes you over heated your Prius and didn't know it.
    I am an industrial maintenance mechanic also electrician, welder, fabricator, you name it, I fix pretty much anything.
    This is the second engine on my Prius, the first one, as you guessed it overheated and throw a rod sliced the front, the back, and took out the AC compressor on the way.
    It lasted 285k, so not bad, but If I would have known what I know today, I would have the same engine.
    I new my car overheated and I didn't know when or where, I also figured out that it had overheated before but not too bad, only bad enough to give me misfires after sitting a couple of days.
    The last time it really overheated, again without any warning, thanks Toyota, when I started the car the next day, it had so much coolant in the cylinder that it bent the rod that failed, I new the motor was pretty much gone, I had to leave for work, and the only way to keep it running and not get misfires was to drive in engine brake so the engine stayed running continually, if the engine stopped and ran in electric as soon as it started it would misfire.
    After going around with some crook to get my replacement, this was another nightmare, I installed and Ultraguage, this is what has saved my current engine and would have saved my old engine.
    These cars come with an electric water pump, that can and will overheat in a matter of seconds, when this happens, it just shuts off without any warning, well I'm sure you can figure out the result and how fast your engine will overheat because there is no coolant circulating, the pump will not stay off long most of the time, depending on the load, for me I and my wife experienced this 20 to 50 times, thanks to Ultragauge I still don't have any misfires to date.
    I'm not sure if any of you have heard of a thermal overload, when an electric motor gets hot it just turns off and self resets once it cools down a little.
    This is the Prius water pump.
    Call it what you like, I am not here to promote Ultragauge in any way, I have had and still have a Scanguage 2 that I don't use, the Ultraguage has alarms, the the kind that most car manufactures put on the cars, you know the smoke signals coming from under the hood, you get this alarm your done.
    Do yourself a favor, buy an Ultragauge and install it on your Prius, get it from the manufacturers website, they are cheaper than buying on ebay, the MX model you can add things that the regular one doesn't have, really the only thing I was able to add that is not on Ultraguage Plus was SOC, State of charge, this is for the hybrid battery.
    If you have misfires, replace your head gasket
    90 dollars Ultraguage can save you from headaches and spending money on what is a great car.
     
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  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Yeah I've often wondered about that so it seems like the water pump used in these cars for this 2ZZ engine are not of the duty cycle that we need in other words it just not made to run all the time or most of the time. I think there are some military in line pumps that are made for near 100% duty cycle might be a better choice.
     
  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    you're lucky, i only made it to 30,000 miles :(
     
  4. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    I have a sound bite I want you to listen to bisco how can I send it to you.
     
  5. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    I'd like to learn more... We have often debated that the poorly designed EGR system in Gen3 Prius, once clogged, fails to keep the engine cool and that extra heat is the source of the failed head gasket. But some on here will argue that its more complicated than that and could have to do with a bad headgasket design and other factors.

    As for the misfires, we've almost always referred to this as the "engine running rough" usually on cold start and though the head gasket leak is very small and you can sometimes get a couple years out of it in that state. But eventually the engine will run so rough consistently it will destroy the transmission dampener.

    So are we talking about the same thing here misfires = running rough ?
     
  6. Lino

    Lino Member

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    if you get an Ultraguage and your pump shuts off your you have less than a minute to let off the gas and pull over, yoiur car will go above 250 degrees in seconds, this is ok as long as you let off and pull over, the head gasket will hold fine, I have been there multiple times, but if you don't have a warning of any kind except for the smoke signals from under hood, I dont think the head gasket can last a minute without coolant circulating
    As for the EGR keeping engine cool, I don't buy it, and I'm definitely not concerned with mine, if it gets completely clogged I should get a code and will not be able to pass smog, in this case I will change it out with the spare I have.
    Buy an Ultraguage, you will not regret it
    Misfire I have experienced on this car is mainly on startup, the spark plug is wet and when the coil provides power to the spark plug to fire, the spark is not able to jump to the electrode I assume it is shorted out, after a few tried eventually it will get a spark, after the first spark the cylinder temperature rises to the point of flashing off the liquid in the cylinder and you will no longer have a misfire as long as there is no liquid in there.
    A single misfire will make the engine shake because it is out of balance when a cylinder fails to fire, multiple misfires most likely more than 1 cylinder is not firing, a bad head gasket will put liquid into 2 cylinders most likely.
     
    #6 Lino, Oct 30, 2023
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2023
  7. rjparker

    rjparker Tu Humilde Sirviente

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    I agree that a serious overheat will eventually warp the head and the black sealing layer of the head gasket can erode. However it is not a given that no overheating means no hg fails. For most with hg fails the 248f temperature warning never occurred. In fact no codes of any kind is typical even when a hg fail has progressed to shaking after every traffic light engine start or with end stage white smoke is seen at the exhaust.

    I also don’t believe the electric pump has a thermal overload typical of a psc motor on your home air conditioner. If it did, an open circuit would be created when it tripped which is easily detected and alarmed by the vehicle’s monitoring system.

    Poor water pump speed control leading to overheat is also unlikely simply because the temperature is redundantly monitored and well controlled even in 110f ambients with air conditioning extracting thousands of btus in front of the radiator at 85mpg on a Texas tollway.

    I have monitored engine temperatures in realtime with user alarms set at 210f for almost a decade. At first with a Bluetooth scanner and in recent years with a P10 wired device. They have never alarmed (currently at 295k miles) BUT what can happen are large swings in coolant temperature when the engine shuts off in traffic under certain conditions. Or worse yet, when running AC in a parking lot for an hour or more. Thermal cycling of 20f cooler is common rapidly rising back to 190f when the engine runs in summer. I have seen a delta as high as 50f on occasion. Thermal cycling, not routine overheating is one Prius factor an otherwise similar Corolla 1.8L does not deal with. I believe Toyota’s gen4 1.8 redesign offers clues to hg root causes with revised cylinder coolant passages and cylinder wall insulators.

    Prius P10 Scanner.jpeg Prius Gen4 Cylinder Insulator.jpeg
     
  8. Lino

    Lino Member

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    upload_2023-10-31_0-28-23.png Here is a mixture of my first engine
     
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  9. Lino

    Lino Member

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    Oops, can someone delete these duplicate posts, I don't see an option
     
    #9 Lino, Oct 31, 2023
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2023
  10. Lino

    Lino Member

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    rjparker, does that gauge have settable alarm?
     
    #10 Lino, Oct 31, 2023
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2023
  11. Lino

    Lino Member

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  12. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk EGR Fanatic

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    My moneys still on timely EGR cleaning. 4th gens have similar electric water pump?
     
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  13. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    Try conversations?
     
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  14. Brian1954

    Brian1954 Senior Member

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    I have the same P10 OBD2 wired display ($30 to $35 on Amazon or eBay). Yes, it has settable alarms for different parameters. Engine coolant temperature being just one of them. I purchased mine two years ago based on rjparker's recommendation.

    You do not need an expensive Ultragauge to display the engine coolant temperature. All you need is an OBD2 device (bluetooth and an app or a wired display) to monitor your engine coolant temperature.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
  15. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk EGR Fanatic

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    Time Toyota reinstated a decent temp gauge on the dash. Used to be the norm.
     
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  16. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Yeah I have that same issue on a block sitting right here in the yard I just disassembled it the other day The connecting rod main bearings in the crank look like they're brand new not a scratch even on the main and rod bearings no copper showing nothing still matte finished silver And this engine had 200 plus thousand 240 maybe 260.
     
  17. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Yeah I have that same issue on a block sitting right here in the yard I just disassembled it the other day The connecting rod main bearings in the crank look like they're brand new not a scratch even on the main and rod bearings no copper showing nothing still finished
    All right I'll gve it a whirl . Have you posted a sound bite of your engine somewhere?
     
  18. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Yes all my Corollas supras and Celica's all have temp gauges I don't know what in the world happened going forward. But it's okay I can add a temp gauge at any time to pretty much anything and usually these light duty electric pumps. Are generally failing again 180 to 200 plus thousand miles so again I can't really complain to Toyota The parts pretty much done its job It's probably time for a new one. But I do think there's some inline around inch and a half higher duty cycle pumps that are made to go in a radiator hose they had them in that mid '80s so I'm sure they still exist today.
     
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  19. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk EGR Fanatic

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    Yeah at least with 3rd gen water pump, the consensus here is it's not a bad idea to replace them proactively, somewhere between 100~150K. Plus thermostat I think. It's something most owners would do once at most. Probably in conjunction with a coolant change.
     
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  20. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    no, and the car is gone. so all's well that ends well.
     
  21. Lino

    Lino Member

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    Cars have had temperature gauges probably before I was born, and they don't work because by the time the smoke signals come from under the hood its too late
    Some say yes I have a temperature gauge so y car will not over heat, you have not experienced how fast the temperature goes up when your water pump isn't running, believe me 1 minutes you will blow the head gasket, no water pump running your car will reach 250 in seconds, less than 15 seconds under load.
    Save you 100 dollars and enjoy your gauge, or dummy light, don't come crying when you have to pay the 1k because your car has the shakes.
    I am not familiar with the other OBD reader, and yes i have apps on my phone for OBD, but I don't drive thousands of miles per year staring at my car temperature on my phone when I can be listening to music.
    My post was to help people out, I have not changed my EGR for well over 200k, and have no plan to.