Chilly Bay Area nights and an engine rattle at starts

Nothing you can do at this point other than learn for the next time.

What I would do in the next couple of days:

• Check the oil dipstick tomorrow morning after the Prius has sat all night
• Take a sharpie out and mark the engine coolant level
• If the check engine light is the only light on, go to autozone as they can read the codes

If you have a place to work:

• Remove the egr pipe (there is a video in the Gen3 maintenance section from @NutzAboutBolts about how to do that)
• Take a picture of what you find
• Report back

Keep us posted .

 

Chilly, eh ?

I just spent 10 days in Indianapolis where it was 20 F and snowed.

Good reminder of why we live out here.

 

This is a pretty harsh response you are getting. "Turd gen cars" really isn't accurate or helpful.

Those codes denote a misfire, #1 and #2 cylinder. Specifically, the check engine light will come on when there is a two percent variance in RPM between the firing of any two (or more) cylinders in the firing order. The check engine light will flash if there is a 10 percent variance because at that point you start to cause damage to your catalytic converter.

Your mechanic's suggested fixes are common approaches to this code although someone with more experience with the 2010 Prius (like the people who have responded above) would have gone in a different direction. But it would not be fair to say that your mechanic ripped you off -- he can't be expected to know the idiosyncratic problems of every model year of every vehicle.

That said, there comes a time when it makes sense to run a car into the ground. With 200K miles, its probably only worth about $3K. If you can drive it for six months avoiding a new car payment of $500, you are ahead of the game. You could try to sell it (as suggested above) but you probably wouldn't sleep well knowing that you palmed this problem off on someone else.

 

Proper diagnosis can help with next steps.

But if you are set on getting out of your Prius, you determined your next steps. We’ve had our 2010 paid off for 5 years, so it owes me nothing and has given us 173 k miles of reliable service.

I’d sleep it off tonight and see where the steps above take you.

 

It was a chilly 60 degrees here in Socal.

Oh you were in the land of peanut butter and hamburgers

 

Most people sell off cars when they become a problem. This is not uncommon and they sleep very well with a new car in their driveway

This car has 200k miles, so buyers would proceed with caution

 

I drove down to Louisville on a Saturday while there to see Churchill downs and was impressed .

On the way there I saw a Freddies and had to stop on the way back.

This was after stopping by Auto Be Yours to see what it was about and saw this kickin around as their shop truck since I was in the area:



The steak burger and shoe string fries were as good as I remembered .

 

Hey I can meet in Walnut Creek!!

 

PM @SFO, @Rxgolfer and myself the address and we can probably make 5-5:30 work today.

Thanks for the offer.

 

Nah, it's terminology used with love by fierce Toyota loyalists.

 

Cleaning the EGR circuit is a pretty timely process, our seasoned expert Raytheeagle, does it in about 5 hours. Cleaning the EGR pipe is fairly easy compared to cleaning the cooler.

 

I'd suggest passing on letting this mechanic shotgun any more unneeded parts. Ray will be able to point you in the right direction.