Seven days idle/loud clatter on startup

5w30 is correct

is it Pennzoil platinum synthetic with adaptive molecules?? (synthetics work better in cold weather and last much longer than conventional oil) hint: synthetic oil + a toyota filter will only last 11K miles, but synthetic oil + a fram extended guard filter will last 15K miles and that filter is only a dollar more.

even running an engine for 10 seconds w/o sufficient oil is dangerous, it can seize the engine. When the car is at rest oil goes back into the pan, when the car starts the oil pump circulates the oil, if you have a faulty oil pump you don't have much time to get it fixed free under warranty. I would contact your dealer.

 

The Prius doesn't start its engine (ICE) like an ordinary car. Since the Prius has a large and powerful electric motor to do the starting, and another even larger and more powerful electric motor to move the car without the engine, the Prius plays it safe and spins up the ICE before starting. The ICE is spun up, oil pressure is verified, and only then is spark and fuel applied.

Tom

 

i sort of have a similar question. ever so often on the first start of the the day i will get a similar clatter when the IC engine turns off. Its sporadic, and i asked the dealer but was unable to get it to duplicate the sound. any thoughts?

 

The Prius spins the ICE to a preset stopping position. This facilitates a clean restart. Sometimes the spin to the stopping position is rougher than others, especially when the engine is new or cold.

Tom

 

The only time I've had an issue with valve clatter on startup with other cars, is if I used a cheap aftermarket oil filter. Depending on application, the anti drainback valve may be poorly made, or missing, allowing a very dry start

 

Don't overlook the obvious: go check the oil level.

 

I came back from a long vacation and exactly the same thing happened to me. Scared the crap out of me. In my case I also received a bunch of warning lights about 5 minutes later and ended up replacing the main battery under warranty. Although I'm pretty sure the two issues are unrelated. From now on when I'm away for more that a week I will have a friend start my car regularly.

BTW, it runs fine now and hasn't done that since then. Im glad because Ive owned a lot of second hand cars and am pretty savvy mechanically and I've never heard anything as rough as that start up on my Prius.

 

Uh oh. I'm worried about starting my Prius. I've been away for about 10 days, so I'll see if I hear a similar noise when I start it tomorrow.

 

What were the temperatures like outside while you were gone? Cold oil will take longer to reach the top of the engine and if its been sitting long enough a lot has probably made its way out of the top. As long as you checked and made sure it was sufficient everything should be fine.

Pretty much every 4 cylinder and even a lot of V6's sound like a diesel for the first couple minutes when you start them up in the middle of winter. Its so common here in the winter that I wouldn't worry about it. Around 4-5 years ago temperatures here got down around -40. At the time I had a Chevy Cobalt. I went out and started it over a half hour before I had to leave for work. When I came back out it was still clattering and it probably clattered like that all week. It was -30 to -40 for an entire week and at the time I lived right next a river.

Did this hurt the engine? Nope, not at all! The 2.2l ecotech in that car was just about as bulletproof as the Prius engine and drivetrain. I went on to drive it another 3-4 years before totaling just over 199k. Whats kind of ironic is when I had that car I had an absolute hate for the Prius for no reason at all, and here I am a couple years later owning and loving one of them The sad part is the Prius would have been able to make that pass I totaled the Cobalt in

Back on topic: When is the last time you changed the oil?

Thats is an unbelievable amount of miles for an '08! I've only owned my Prius since the beginning of this June and I'm closing in on 30k now.

 

The OP's original post was over eight years ago so I expect they have a lot more miles on it by now

 

Oh wow I guess I'll pay better attention to the dates on here from now on. That thread was at the top of main forum discussion when I clicked on it so I assumed it was new This is like 3rd day of being a member here but I've never seen a site that goes down so frequently as this one. I hope its not this bad all the time.

 

The site is normally working fine, it sometimes has a few problems in the morning when it hasn't had its caffeine

 

That explains it I've tried to visit this site the last few nights when I got home at 5AM and its never worked at that time It also never works at 1AM either but at 3:30 I can sometimes get the main page to load Sometimes! but even then when it does everyones avatar is so big I cant even read the posts.

 

I think they do server maintenance or something on occasion, you happened to join during one of those times. It doesn't happen very often.

 

I guess several times every day is not often, then.

 

You are saying that the site goes completely down several times a day? How is that you experience that and I don't? And apparently not everyone else either because I see people posting all day.

Unless you are referring to times when the site can be sluggish, and you get a connection error and have to refresh the page to get past the error. I wouldn't refer to that as the site being down. I have seen that there are periods of a few days where I get that sluggishness for a few minutes, several times a day, but then it will go for weeks with no problems.

For a free site with limited advertising compared to other free sites I'm fine with it. I think sites like AP News have become almost unusable as I am constantly fighting off pop-up video ads, it reminds me of that old video game Space Invaders. Which is a fun game to play but not when you are trying to read a news article. I'll take the occasional quirkiness of this site over that any day.

 

Site was just down maybe half an hour ago.

 

Odd, I have been on the site off and on for the past hour. I did get a few connection errors around that time that I clicked past but the site wasn't down, at least not for me.

 

I only tried maybe three times then. And now it’s working so not a big problem.