EGR and engine failure?

Hello,

My first post here.

I have a Prius v from 2012 with low mileage (60000km) - here in Sweden it is called Prius Plus.

Three weeks ago the engine started to misfire after we drove the car downtown for about 5km. This was when the car was parked and the engine was started to recharge the battery.
I noticed how the engine was struggling, and how the computer was trying to gas without success.

When i tried to move the car there was a very bad smell from the engine and it was impossible to drive it.

Eventually the car was towed to the local Toyota assistance, where the same problem was reproduced once but no error codes were reported.

After that, the car started to work normally and it was returned to me without a diagnosis. It has worked so far, but I am noticing that the engine sounds different, slower, when running at minimum.

As far as I know no inspection of the EGR was performed. Do you think that might be related?

The car has a low mileage and has been driven mostly in town at low speed.

Thanks in advance for your input on this. The personnel at Toyota was as puzzled as me and did not have a clue about it.

 

Hello, thanks for your suggestions!

The car has just gone through all Toyota service checks without apparent problems, so no coolant issues have been noticed. There are no warning lamps either.

I will try checking if the fuel consumption is higher - although that might be related to the heavy winter tires that are needed here in Sweden.

 

Hello again,

Eventually I have taken the car to Toyota for assistance, since the engine started to emit a clanking noise and I noticed some liquid dropping from the exhaust this morning, after a short drive in town.

See following picture and video

Surprisingly, I was able to drive the car to the assistance with no warning lamps even if I noticed quite a lot of white smoke coming out of the exhaust when the car stopped at the first traffic light. Again, the problem seems to be most noticeable when the engine is running at minimum, charging the battery. Switching to PWR mode seems to somehow alleviate the problem.

I explicitly asked for a checkup of the EGR system, we'll see what they come up with this time.

Thanks again for your help!

/m

 

Not at all. The car has been used mostly for slow-speed city driving. This Toyota blog entry though notes that the EGR might get clogged because of this (link in my next postI, I'm not allowed to post links yet)

A blown head gasket at 60000km would be really weird. Let's see what the Toyota service guys say about it this time. Weirdly enough they were not able to detect any fault two weeks ago :-(

 

Yes I am the original owner, the car has been driven mostly in town. I was 100% happy with it until this happened

 

It was hard to tell actually. It looked like water though so it might have been condensation from the AC?

 

Update: Toyota was finally able to get an error code from the car, confirming that it was the EGR system being clogged.

I will not get my car back until next week, I will report back how it's going.

Here is the blog post from Toyota about the EGR which I showed them:
Toyota EGR valve: Understanding exhaust gas recirculation valves - Toyota

Thanks again for your help!

 

We use our car mostly in the city, so it usually drives around 50km/h or slower.
That would explain the clogging. Weirdly enough the car has undergone Toyota service every year, but inspection of the EGR pipe is not included in that!