Preventative care for Shaking/ knocking starts

My advice to you is let it idle until it clears up, start using some Lucas Injector cleaner. Only thing I'm worried about for you is your hybrid battery. I had problems with mine about a year ago and after a failed repair I bought a Project Lithium when it was available.

So my 2010 would do this as well. Always in the cold, just for a few seconds. Bought at 163k and now 7~ years later at 199.8k, it's still fine. I honestly think it was just leaky injectors. All I can say I did is put Lucas fuel injector cleaner in the tank. Something like 120cc per tank.

No head gasket problems yet, for now. About 1-2 years ago I took apart the EGR system and intake manifold and cleaned all that up. In my research/experience, the head gasket is not related to the EGR system. All cleaning the EGR system and intake will do is give you better low end acceleration. 0-60 will be the same, mpg will be the same. It will just be more sensitive at taking off from a stop.

In the last 4+ years, it's probably only done it 2 times and one of those times, the car sat for about a week in the cold.

If you open the coolant tank, you will hear wooshing. It's always under pressure. iirc.

Live in a cold climate? Look into grill blocking. I do 50% bottom grill when it's 70F or less for my little 7 mile drives to and then from work.

If you're not losing any coolant, you're probably fine.

Make sure to do 5k oil changes. Eventually your piston rings get more and more clogged up with increased oil burning.

Look into increasing oil weight. The cost is MPG but you burn less oil, that will clog your intake manifold, EGR system, Catalytic Converter. 5w30 is compatible in my opinion. I currently have 10w40 in my 2010 Prius with 199.8k. I'm having oil burning, leaking and nearly clogged catalytic converter problems. I also assume my EGR system and intake manifold are clogged up again from burning/leaking about 5-8 quarts of oil in 10k~ miles.

 

Changing oil weight won’t fix anything but could hurt your variable valve timing if you get too thick. Unclogging stuck low tension rings with different oil or additives is a fairy tale. The cat alone is more than half the cost of a rebuild.

 

If you want your car to last another 50-80k more miles or more, that is what I truly believe. The oil burning is only going to get progressively worse over time. You're going to lose some MPG but IMO, it's worth it. The earlier you start doing it, at the sign of oil loss, the better. It might not prevent it but slow it down. I was burning/oil seep about 1quart every 1k miles. With 0w20.

I have 10w40 GTX high mileage blend in my car right now. I've only driven about 450 miles on it so far. There were a couple days where it was 18F outside and that was quite worrisome. Didn't intend to have this thick oil in it at those temperatures. So far I haven't noticed oil loss on the dipstick.

At 186k~ my EGR cooler was 100% clogged as far as I could tell.