Hello, I have a 2012 Prius v with 120,000 miles. I have been researching head gasket failures. I am wondering if anyone had found any information on the percentage of failures in the Gen 3 cars. That is to say, is it a case where it's not IF but WHEN the failure occurs or is it a case where the 5 percent that fail get a lot of press? I asked a question, some months ago as to when to expect the failure. I mean, is there a window, say 140,000 miles to 170,000 miles in which most failures occur? The response I got was an opinion of 140,000 miles as a good place for failure to occur. There are many reasons I ask, but most particularly, I will be doing quite a bit of PM on this new-to-me car. In the spring I'll be changing fluids, belts, plugs etc. etc. In order to do this I will have already removed a lot of the time consuming stuff that is required just to get at the head. If there is a lot of reason to believe that a failure is imminent (currently running fine), then I'll strip it, have it delivered to the dealer for gasket replacement then bring it back and complete the job. I can save a little over $1,000 of the $2,600 quoted if I do most of the picky removal and replacement of all the plastic etc. So..... how many head gasket failures and when? Much thanks!
It's possible someone will chime in with data that I haven't seen, but from what I'm aware of so far, it might be hard to give much of an answer. Here on PriusChat we might have a lot of posts about the failure, possibly even hundreds of them, but PriusChat isn't a place where drivers of the 1.114 million or so Gen 3 Prii regularly check in to say when their gaskets haven't failed. That makes extrapolating from reports here a very dicey business.
Thanks for the reply! If there are no independent record keepers, such as Toyota or a resource like JD Powers then you very likely are right. It seemed to me that if anyone knew where to find this information, it would probably be someone here on Prius Chat. Again, I appreciate the response. I am surprised at how much I have come to like this car and I am thinking that I'd like to drive it as long as possible!
Data becomes aggregated in private databases by insurance and auto makers , sadly you get much past 4 years and it becomes placed in rather large buckets. I can’t say I’ve ever seen reliable data for any car presented concisely and towards the public
140k and up seems to be the “sweet spot”. I’d like to see some stats on this; suspect every third gen nearing 200k is on borrowed time.
it's interesting. when we had a 90's windstar, the headgasket fiasco under 100,000 miles was a known quantity to everyone i talked to about it, even the ford dealers. (who usually deny anything that isn't a recall, or maybe a tsb) with gen 3 prius, it doesn't seem to be that way outside of priuschat.
I'm a little over 200k. Coolant is the same level as two years ago when I changed it, oil is steady and no funny noise from engine. Yet. So I'm lucky or what?
I think a lot of it depends on how you drive the car. It appears that those who do a lot of city driving seem to have the most problems with the head gaskets. And those who don't clean the EGR Circuit often. I just turned 264,000 miles on my 2010. The coolant level is still between the full and fill lines. ORiginal water pump, though I just received a new empeller for it. And I have a new inverter pump. I will replace both when I do the EGR Circuit soon, I has been 64,000 miles since I last cleaned it. I would say 90% of the driving I've done since last time has been highway driving, at 65mph or less. Most of those who drive the Prius like a PRUIS, and not an F1 car, tend to have less problems. The Prius is a great car. It's a very easy car to work on.
And gasketmasters, who see the worst of the bad. youtu.be/jxjIzhpwW78 check the link in @Mendel Leisk s' signature for links to HowTo EGR stuff. It seems from most reports seen here at Priuschat, or at least most of them I've read, that the order of failure is EGR clogs leading to head gasket failure later.
One clue pointing in that direction: The Intake Manifold EGR passage at cylinder one typically clogs the soonest, and the wall between cylinder one and two is where most of the reports of head gasket failure are happening.
I'm sure the quality control department at Toyota has great numbers that could answer your question. But they don't like to share stuff life that. As for preventing it from happening, seems the more maintenance you do the better your odds, especially when it comes to keeping EGR system, cleaned out. Also where did you find a mechanic who would do just part of the headgasket work? I'd be a bit sketch to do partial work for someone because how do you figure out who was at fault if the repair didn't work out? And why not do the whole project from start to finish?
The head gasket failed on my Gen 3 at 257000 miles. The car used no oil, and the coolant level never changed. Because of the lack of oil consumption, I was in denial about the need to clean the EGR cooler. Then one morning, Bang!
2010 Toyota Prius Engine Problems | CarComplaints.com is a good start to check for any car with mass production and large statistics. I think the main complaint is Oil consumption issues that most Prius 2010-2011 owners experience. Mainly because of 10k miles oil change interval with many short trips combined with low tension piston rings. What I found, the problems become very rare starting at the end of the 2014 model. Interestingly, it is not as common as Nissan Altima 2002-2003 model with timing bomb catalytic converter 2002 Nissan Altima Engine Problems | CarComplaints.com I think because the Altima QR25DE engines head gasket often failed before 100k miles and people complaints much more about it. Honestly, 200k miles head gasket failure is not too bad for other brands but too bad for Toyota standard.
I have something I have located like that. It shows statistics of when the head gaskets are likely to go out and mechanics rely on this.
Did you even once consider that this forum is for sharing information, rather than saying you have information about something important and not sharing it?
There are lots of diagnostic tips for head gasket fails which are taught in high school auto shop and trade schools. Which has little relevance to 2010-2015 Prius engines where they blow without overheating or over revving. Plus no other five year production run has generated such a specialized repair business model for many entrepreneurs.
