07 whining/whirring sound from engine, transaxle issue?

I'm still recovering from the shop thinking it has a 2nd or 3rd gear.

Didn't hear anything that sounded odd to me.

 

no harm in changing the fluid, it isn't an automatic torque converter. and try to find another shop

sounds like it's hunting for the start position on shut down, but i have no idea

 

I hear the whine and it does sound like a transaxle issue. When I encountered this problem, I had warning lights on my dash with a similar whine at start up and coming to a stop. Luscious Garage in San Francisco had a write up about this problem on their website, detailed description of the problem.

I'd recommend getting the transaxle fluid change at a shop that knows a bit about the Prius (your fluid might just be low). Use the WS fluid from Toyota, 4 quarts. If after changing the fluid and the car still makes that noise, then you might prepare yourself for a new transaxle soon.

The shop that said it is shifting slow from 2nd to 3rd has no idea how the Prius transaxle works.

 

Yeah, find another shop.

 

is it the noise starting at like 13 or 14 seconds in the first link that you’re referring to?

 

You missed a big opportunity with the trans fluid change. Could of looked at the dump bolt magnet any bearing failure will be on that magnet.
The mechanic doing it could care less if he saw anything.

Get up to 65 miles an hour turn off the ac & radio & shut the windows make it quiet and put the car in neutral let it coast see if you can hear it then. Engine will shut off then your just rolling. If trans making noise then its strictly mechanical gear or chain and its new trans time soon. Drive it till it explodes.

If you hear the noise make a recording of it and don't talk so we can turn it up. So far I hear nothing that's not the noisy prius engine.

Whats the story on this thing?

 

Now your saying the engine. Do what I said in the coast test the engine shuts off,

Btw in four years what’s the engine oil like ever check how much oil does it use it ever replaced the one and only super important belt in there and checked the rad coolant level by taking the plastic radcover off and open the rad cap?

 

Yeah, these sound-recording posts can be tricky. It's a huge advance to be able to make recordings easily and post them for others to listen to, compared to the olden days when we couldn't, but there are still a lot of things to keep in mind. Some people listening will have their computers connected to great speakers; others will have little computer speakers, or ear buds, or be browsing PriusChat on their phones and listening through tinny phone speakers. Your recording really can sound very different when it is heard in all of those different ways.

On top of that, different listeners might start with different guesses about which part of the sound they think you're concerned about, and will be focusing on different parts of what they hear.

So even though it's great to be able to make recordings, and we believe you're hearing something that's new to you, sometimes there still are ways you can help focus people on the exact sound that concerns you. We've had some threads before where it helped to load the recording into something like Audacity and work with the level or EQ of the recording to emphasize the part of the sound that was the concern. Also, a program like Audacity can usually produce a visual representation of the audio, and a couple times it was helpful to screenshot that and just add some highlighting where the concerning sounds were. If you're listening to a recording and looking at that picture at the same time, it can really help the interesting part pop out.


There was a time 20+ years ago when I noticed a big lump on my neck. It turned out to be nothing more than a salivary duct that got plugged and ballooned out like a bullfrog, after a whole lot of scary doctor visits before they were sure it was that. But what amazed me at first was how it could be so obvious to me and yet still a challenge to point out to somebody else.

The first person I said "hey, can you feel something here?" to was my GF at the time, and she felt all around my neck and said no. I said "really? no??" Then I took her fingers one by one and planted them around the outline of this thing that was, no fooling, the size of an egg, and her eyes got real wide and she said something like "OMG I didn't think that could be what you meant because it's so big it didn't feel like it could be anything new!"

Then when I could get in for an office visit, I had to repeat that exact process with the nurse there. After that, a lot of things happened quickly (including my insurance company looking for excuses to drop my policy). But a main thing I remember from that time was how sometimes it's really on us to help others notice what we're pointing out, even when it's so obvious to us that we can't imagine how they'd miss it.

 

Does something strange happen when you go to throw it in neutral?

 

Why can’t you throw it in Nuetral I do it all the time to clean the brakes.

 

Sounds like the inverter is screaming. Have you checked and seen if the fluid is moving in the inverter reservoir or is it full I know it was just replaced.

Whats the deal with your hybrid battery is it the original? if so that may be part or all of the problem
your driving the car like it has a good battery and you have to floor it everywhere you go just to get going.

Are you watching the battery monitor behavior all the time? is it living in purple bars all the time? Battery failure or beginning of failure happens so gradually you may not even notice it till one day you get the triangle of death. Super common. Its just age.

 

On that second video, is the car moving or just sitting there?

I do hear the sound I think you mean in this one. I'm going to go with one of the small electric motors under the hood, and probably one of the pumps. What clinches it for me is the sound toward the very end when it stops, a very characteristic pump-winding-down sound.

If not a pump, it could be one of the radiator fans, which also start and stop like that, but I'm still leaning toward pump.

I don't know what your HVAC settings were at the time of that recording. A Gen 2 has a number of pumps under the hood, and one of them has the job of pushing water to the heater when the engine is stopped (because the engine's own water pump in a Gen 2 depends on a belt). I've heard that pump cycle on and off like that in other Gen 2s (though usually more quietly ) when there's just a slight heating demand. The one I mean is the one shown here:



Do you happen to have a mechanic's stethoscope? They're really cheap at an auto parts shoppe, and they can make really short work of questions like this.

I don't think I've ever heard a Prius inverter scream. I guess Hallowe'en isn't too far off maybe I'll try to scare mine and see what happens.