Good Evening fellow Prius owners! It’s nice to be able join this great site. I hope someone can help me on this one.... I have a 2010 Prius, 121000 miles on the clock. Recently when pressing on the gas and releasing, the car continues to rev for a second or two longer than usual. It also sounds to me that the car is working harder than usual when accelerating. Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this problem? Is it a battery health issue? Many thanks, Kerry
You are at the time in life where an EGR cooler can be plugged. That could cause driveability issues. I would check the condition of the EGR pipes and hoses to start, and if they are ugly then clean the EGR cooler. The hanging revs could also indicate sticking of the throttle body. That's an easy check of that for carbon buildup which may (not as likely) cause this. I would also run a battery diagnostic check - Dr. Prius does this, if I recall.
I’d check to make sure there is nothing binding on the throttle pedal. Maybe even watch the pedal PID on a scan tool if possible. I’d blame the pedal sensor first over the throttle body.
I am not an expert on this. I will mention that your accelerator pedal is basically a rheostat mounted on a spring. If it were to stick or be slow to return, it would generate the first symptom you describe. WD40 to the rescue?...
Yeah - I second the PID suggestion. If you have an android device, get an ELM327 Bluetooth OBD-II reader, and the Torque (or torque pro) app - it will let you get a TON of great information, read your “check engine” type codes on any US vehicle 1996 and newer. That’s what folks mean by reading PIDs. (And you can run the Hybrid Assistant app, which gives a ton of useful & interesting Prius-specific info in real-time).
I would start with data points to begin your investigation. As others have mentioned, having a code reader in your toolbelt is extremely valuable. Start with the code check and monitor your battery cell voltage and variances for symptoms of battery cell degradation. Torque app has custom pids you can download, but the one time setup is a pain in the butt to setup all your monitors. Torque is great in that you can easily log and export the data to help identify trends/normalize your datapoints - pivot tables anyone? A screen shot of my dashboard. Alternatively u can use a app called Hybrid Assistant or Dr Hybrid which has the built in widgets, applets, etc already setup. The other data points require some good old fashion wrenching. How comfortable are you with disassembling your air box and checking for build up and crud on your throttle body? I would clean your maf sensor since you will have the air box apart. Our was pretty cruddy after 150k. May not solve your issue but great to do the maint and remove one less variable since you have it apart anyways. Good luck!
