Glad to have found this site - the red triangle of death on my 2008 with over 230k arrived last year. Since then the car has been parked on non-op in So Calif. I have been debating the option of putting in a new/used engine and keep using. the body interior parts are all in good shape and a lot of the engine compartment - heater muffler etc were all fairly new. my regular mechanic said he would not be able to do the engine replacement and doesn't think it's worth it. Any thoughts that would help me figure out whether to rebuild or just sell to the junk yard? thanks in advance.
Welcome to Prius Chat . Some questions: What makes you believe the engine is bad requiring replacement? How long has the Prius actually sat? Did you have the codes read? Was the engine oil level low? The cause of the red triangle can be many things . Best to have the codes read and see what the true cause is. Good luck and keep us posted .
Do you remember what the codes were? Unless it was completely run out of oil, the Gen2’s are pretty robust. Any more info on what happened prior to parking it? The more details the better.
If it has not been started for 16 months your 12V battery is more than likely bad and a Prius High Voltage Battery could be questionable too. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You need to get someone else to take a look at it and see what it would cost to get it going again and go from there. There seems to be a market for old hybrids instead of junking it if that is the way you want to go. Look at the whole picture and then decide.
What was bad about the cylinders? Low compression? Oil on spark plugs? Burning too much oil? Oil in the intake manifold? We have had at least one engine here the Toyota dealer said was shot that wound up to be something completely different. If you want help you need to give us more information.
