Loosing anti freeze

2012 prius w/240k miles.
Im losing anti freeze and when its very low, i loose my heat too, i assume thats to be expected.
In addition, when i do run the heater, this serms to be the only time I loose anti freeze. Turn the heater off and all is fine. In fact I took a 10 hour trip in it the other day with no problems, i just didnt use the heater.
Also, when i do run the heater, there seems to be smoke coming from the center, left side (drivers side) of the engine compartment, as you are sitting in the drivers seat.
Any advice you can offer would be great.
Thank you !!!

 

Hello Mendel Leisk,
Im older and at times forgetful but seems to me someone else recently mentioned the egr valve to me too. To answer your question, I've yet to touch the egr valve.

Honestly we live on a fixed income and absolutely love our prius. We have made it to 240k miles performing a minumum of maintenance. Aside from oil changes, tires and brakes, we havent done anything to the car. Wait thats not totally true, we did do the spark plugs, boots and a clock spring to fix a broken horn, at about 220k miles.
About a month ago I had the dreaded check hybrid system light come on. At about the same time that happened we had an odd electrical problem occur. When you turned the car off, the outside driving lights would turn off too, as expected, what wasnt expected was after about 3 to 5 minutes later, after turning the car off, the back lights, and only the back lights would turn back on. Not the headlights, only the back lights. Well out of pure fear of draining the cars battery and becoming stranded, I would disconnect the cars battery whenever I parked it to prevent draining the battery. This not only worked like a charm as a temporary fix but the dreaded "check hybrid system" light never came back on, and well the back lights stopped misbehaving and are now operating correctly and I dont disconnect the battery anymore.
Talk about Toyota quality, I just love a car that fixes its own problems itself without my having to hire a mechanic.

I am preparing to locate a mechanic that i can trust with my prius. The last one who did our plugs was a rip off in my opinion, he charged us 300 to do the plugs, and i supplied the plugs, plus he charged me an xtra hundred bucks to replace the 4 boots on the spark plugs, which i thought was really price gouging considering i can buy the boots for about 5 bucks a piece.

Im thinking maybe my hybrid battery may be getting weak, which in turn caused the odd electrical problem I experienced. Of course Im just guessing at this point. I do know I have to fix the exhaust gasket to pass inspection and to get the check engine light off. A mechanic explained to me that the egr is after the exhaust leak, which means the check engine light is pointing to the exhaust leak not the egr valve, but maybe he has it backwards? What do you think? (Sorry for the long reply)

 

If it was the head gasket wouldn’t I have antifreeze in my oil?