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Head gasket repair Or sell?

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Main Forum' started by PriusPhoenix, Jul 22, 2024.

  1. PriusPhoenix

    PriusPhoenix Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jul 22, 2023
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    Location:
    Arizona
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius
    Model:
    Three
    I have a 2013 Toyota Prius three with 235,000 miles and the car sputters at about 15 to 20 mph. I have cleaned EGR cooler, Intake manifold, Replaced fuel injectors, Spark plugs, Transmission fluid, gaskets And a variety of sensors. There are no signs of a head gasket failure like white smoke coming out of the exhaust or milky oil. The only thing that I notice is, there’s a small amount of liquid inside the intake manifold underneath the throttle body. About an inch of the coolant will disappear after about an hour of driving from the reservoir. Now I can get it out of the sputter by manipulating the gas pedal in the engine straightens out. The car runs excellent other than that sputter at that particular acceleration speed. Now, after doing all these repairs, it didn’t change anything. It made the car run better, but still has that sputter and engine shake. I’m wondering if there’s anything else I could check that may not be the head gasket? I’m afraid I have come to the conclusion that it is the head gasket. In the condition that the car is in What do you think it’s worth? Clear title, Good tires, Cold AC ac, never had hybrid system worked on.
     
    #1 PriusPhoenix, Jul 22, 2024
    Tombukt2 likes this.
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Location:
    Durham NC
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    Base
    My advice would be to stop now you've replaced a good portion of under hood parts luckily I didn't have to go that far All you need to do is pull your plugs which is disassemble the wiper tray and the motor and all of that and stick your inspection camera down there that you borrow rent or buy look up at the head gasket mating surfaces and the head and you'll see the droplets You pull the plugs and look with the magnifying glass you'll see micro droplets on the insulators of the plugs touch your finger to the insulator into your tongue and you will breathe in the vapors of ethylene glycol No it won't kill you. And now you know what you have The fire is being put out by water vapors arriving at the fire creating device in the cylinder the spark plug so you have the fire department on duty when they should be at home asleep in their beds basically I have not had good luck with this open deck design and these kind of antics so I just bowed out The car is to me is not worthy of the repair work unless yours is an extremely nice condition which personally I haven't really seen a lot of at least not once we hit the 200,000 mark door panels are starting to bow in and things like that that stuff generally isn't available plastic welding doesn't seem to hold and then the rest of the interior starts following quickly in those footsteps The best thing about your 13 if you have it is the soft tech interior the fake leather It's pretty durable and pretty nice unless you burn it some of the nicer seats in any of the Toyotas and 46 you're so years I loan the soft text material is quite nice and I like the tulip shift lever. Which now resides in my generation too.
     
    #2 Tombukt2, Jul 22, 2024
  3. AW82

    AW82 Member

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2021
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    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius
    Model:
    Two
    Did you replace the EGR valve?
     
    #3 AW82, Jul 23, 2024
  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

    Joined:
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    Location:
    boston
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius Plug-in
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    Plug-in Base
    time to move on imo, all the best
     
    #4 bisco, Jul 23, 2024
    JohnPrius3005 likes this.
  5. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk EGR Fanatic

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2010
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    Location:
    Greater Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    Touring
    An ongoing saga.

    You could try a head gasket replacement; can you DIY? Start with boroscope inspection of cylinders, first thing in morning after driving the previous day. Look for coolant, oddly clean piston top. Also cylinder wall scuffing.

    how’s oil consumption?
     
    #5 Mendel Leisk, Jul 30, 2024
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