Hey all I just bought my first car - 2015 Prius two with 206k miles on it. Only one previous owner who religiously maintained it only at the dealership so I'm hoping I lucked out on that. The car has an amazingly detailed service history, but I don't know if the egr circuit has ever been replaced or cleaned. Never was reported on the history. If i had the tools and the space to do it I'd love to do it myself and get to know my car but it's just not possible unfortunately, so I was wondering if anyone was either in the bay area that could help or knew of reputable shops around here. I'd also love to get a cat shield put on. sorry if this info has already been posted a thousand times - i tried to do my own research. I also wanted to start getting involved in the community so I decided to post. Thank you!
If you've got a ratchet wrench with a 10 mm socket, some pliers, brushes/rags, can of brake cleaner, a pan for containing mess, and about an hour of spare time, you could have a look at the connecting pipe between the EGR valve and the intake manifold. This will give you some idea what to expect from the res of the system, namely the EGR valve, cooler and intake manifold). @NutzAboutBolts video will walk you through it: A 3rd gen for sale with that miles, with possibly untouched EGR system, stands a good chance of already having a blown head gasket. Keep an eye on the engine coolant level in the reservoir. A sign of trouble is knocking at cold-starts, typically due to coolant accumulating in cylinders. Even if it's running smooth, if you check out the condition of the aforementioned pipe (between EGR valve and and intake manifold), and it proves to be quite bunged up with carbon, seller "might" have added a stop-leak product to the coolant, to mask head gasket failure symptoms. These "religiously maintained at dealership" cars tend to be the worst offenders btw.
