EGR Cleaning at Hybrid Pit

Lots of cold starts and light loads (short city driving) is dirtier than fully warm moderate loads (highway cruising).

 

If you look again more closely at your Warranty and Maintenance Guide I believe you will see that there is a 10k/12month general recommendation, given alongside a 5k/6month recommendation if any of about four different driving conditions apply to you. You are, of course, on the honor system to decide if any of those apply to you. If the answer for any one is yes, then Toyota's recommended interval for you is 5k or 6 months, as it is for me. No 'feeling' about it.

 

For a gen3 Toyota did push people into the 10k mile or 12 month oil change by giving the first two free. They suggested it was free maintenance for the first 25k miles but would not do free oil changes at 5k, 15k or 25k. By providing free oil changes at 10k and 20k miles they established a pattern in the customer's mind. I was one of those customers and ended up with oil burning and completely clogged egrs.

Toyota service departments are commission driven and are often behind the curve on emerging issues. I had an antenna preamp failure they would not cover during warranty primarily because they never saw one fail and the dealer had no clue how to test it. Later Toyota provided a test rig for the problem. After the warranty expired. My inverter failed before they covered it. Toyota is still not acknowledging egr clogging as a problem beyond replacing it. They did replace rings for a few owners early on.

The 5k mile oil change Special Conditions really don't fit most customers. Used wrong oil last time? No. Dirt or dusty roads? No. Less than five mile trips below 32F? No. Extensive idling or low speed driving like Taxi, Police or Delivery? No.

Bad engine design with flawed pistons, rings and egr? Yes. Change your oil at 5k mile or six month intervals. But this is not Toyota criteria; it is simply experienced mechanic's recommendations that may save your engine and catalytic converter. It won't help your brake booster so save a couple of thousand for that day. If your head gasket goes first you will have funds ready for that as well.

 

Toyota's reputation takes a hit if big items start failing before ~150,000 miles, but it really isn't in Toyota's interest to build cars that last 300,000+ since very few of Toyota's customers keep their cars that long.

On the other hand, customers tend to appreciate it when Toyota eliminates routine maintenance. Who likes adjusting points, tuning jets, and swapping spark plugs twice a year?

 

When I was a teen, I really did like all that. Felt very grown up.

Can't say I've missed it since then.

 

RJ: Is it worth it to try and clean the EGR yourself? Coming up on 100K maintenance and wondering what I should have done besides the owner's manual suggestions. Thanks.... cr

 

Sure.

 

It’s the best way to go. Dealerships will want to replace everything, which is a total sand pounder. See first link in my signature.

 

Thanks RJ., always love reading your posts and reply's.

 

Thanks ML., lot of great info on your signature. I'm checking it out now.

 

The EGR valve is easy to clean with Berryman's cleaner in minutes. It's the cooler that takes some time.

For the $618 paid to Hybrid Pit, the cost of the trip from Las Vegas to Buena Park, the night spent in the motel and the cost for meals, one can buy a used egr cooler off of eBay for just over $100 and take his or her time to clean it beforehand. Just over $200 will get you a new updated intake manifold instead of one that is just cleaned. Hybrid fan cleaning is a take apart, vacuum and brush job. For that price, you could have a new fan, too.

You don't have to do everything at once. Most everything is unbolt or snap apart and reassemble.

 

There's an updated intake manifold? Can you point me in the direction?

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Which model Prius? Your data reflects that you have a 2006 model.

 

Cleaning your existing manifold is easy and effective. The manifold revision was apparently a revision to the EGR passages, going from:

One large gallery feeding four capillaries

to:

one large gallery feeding two intermediates feeding four capillaries

and I suspect it doesn’t make much difference. Except to lighten your wallet.

 

Sorry, I no longer have that Prius... I now have a 2012 Prius V Gen 3 engine.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Engine Intake Manifold - Toyota (17120-37054) the latest revision.

https://parts.mcgeorgetoyota.com/oem-parts/toyota-engine-intake-manifold-1712037054

 

So, before I really understood what I do now, I watched a youtube video that guided me. It told me to take the EGR out, spray with all kinds of engine cleaning solvent, let it soak a while, then fire a pressure washer through each end of it until it was clean water.
Then I sprayed cleaner into the intake manifold and scrubbed it with a pipe brush. Changed the orange gasket and It worked! LOL

Took about an hour and cost about $20.

 

Congrats, and welcome! What's your odometer reading, and how badly was it clogged?