Very old post. But I must chime in . I got piston pictures like this with an Amazon borascope cheap android cell cam. Look with a hi quality camera.. my pistons looked beat up. In real life very good
Just hit 200000 today Original hybrid battery Changed 12 volt once Oil change every 6 months Replaced tires a few times, Replaced brakes New catalytic converter but only because mine was stolen Replaced oil pan
Q) Did you replace the HV battery pack? Do you maintain it? A) Nope, original battery at 240K (140K of which are my own miles), no battery maintenance performed. Expecting battery to go out within the next year. Q) Did you replace the 12v battery? A) Only once during my ownership. That was 5 years ago. Q) Did you replace the transaxle fluid? How often? A) Yes, twice during my ownership. First 130K, again at 200K. Q) Did you replace the brake pads? A) Not yet! Still have 5mm remaining on the front pads. Expecting to have them replaced around the 250K mark. Mostly due to polished rotors rather than pad wear. Q) Your lifetime MPG (if available)? A) Total lifetime MPG unavailable. Estimated lifetime MPG: 46 MPG. Q) How often do you change your oil? Does your Prius consume oil? What brand / product did you use? A)_Once every 10K miles until I reached 200K. Now every 5K, done at Toyota. Q) Did you install an oil catch can? How often do you inspect or dump it? A)Nope. Q) Have you cleaned the egr circuit? How frequently? A) Yes, twice. Once at 110K and again at 200K. Q) Any other maintenance? A) EGR cleaning. Catalytic converter replaced due to carbon buildup. Upstream O2 sensor, oil pressure sensor, and water pump all replaced. Front struts and sway bar links also replaced. Aside from that, just standard regular maintenance. I will be replacing my wheel bearings next week.
Cat replacement? Is is consuming a lot of oil? What was the symptom or code that got you do do that? What about the water pump? Code or symptom? Or did you do that preventatively ? I'm considering that at some point. I'm at 155k mi and oil consumption is minimal. I'm doing 5k oil changes,,, now. I'm currently driving with the EGR valve disconnected to hopefully keep from having a head gasket failure due to uneven flow of EGR.
The Cat was replaced when restricted airflow tripped the P0420 code. I burn about 1QT/5K miles. Pretty tolerable but it adds up over 200K. The only symptom prior to tripping the code is a mild sulfuric (rotten egg) smell under heavy acceleration. Once that was replaced, it tripped P2237 for the upstream O2 sensor. Not sure if that was related or coincidental. My water pump failed, tripping P261b. I did not experience any symptoms prior to this, but when it tripped P261b, it also tripped the check hybrid system warning and set me to limp home mode. Clearing the codes and restarting my car allowed it to run like normal until the pump RPM dropped below a set threshold. Out of curiosity, does disconnecting the EGR valve have any side effects on the performance of the vehicle?
The water pump is such a cheap and easy thing to do, its probably worth doing between 175K and 200K for the sake of preventative maintenance.
Thanks for the detailed reply. There are a few threads concerning 'deleting EGR'. I can't see a difference in MPG with EGR valve disconnected. I think I feel the engine slightly more responsive to light added throttle. I think I used to feel about a second of hesitation with small added throttle. Now it feels more immediate. I plan on blind testing this with a helper.
EGR reduces combustion chamber temperature. The EGR supply air with less O2. Without EGR is an express route to higher oil consumption and head gasket leak. Cars without EGR like older QR25DE have an overlap of opening the exhaust valves during the intake cycle. The effect of EGR is the same as recycling exhaust directly from exhaust valves. However, it has higher temp and less efficient than what in Prius by using cooler. More efficient and troubles at the same time.
How would you explain how most of Toyota's NA engines do not have EGR?. How do you explain the Knock Sensor's duty in the system. I won't ask about how the oil control rings have any idea what's happening in the combustion chamber. That's a bogus claim. Just leaving everything stock and following the Owner's Manual and Service Manual recommendations a Gen3 Prius WILL have a head gasket failure, like clock work, true?
More succinctly, how do some Toyotas manage without EGR? they’re tuned differently. but for the ones with EGR, they’re counting on it. Yes.
Because they are designed without EGR with different compression ratio and lean/rich mixtures. Many older Toyota, Nisssan, Honda are not using EGR. They also emitted much more NOX and less efficient. Newer Toyota engines have 39% or more thermal efficiency without emitting too much NOx like Diesel or ultra lean burned. You can delete the Heat exchanger if it leaks because it is built together with Catalytic that cost fortune to replace. Europe has corolla hybrid since 2010 using Prius engines and most of them has no heat exchanger nor grill flap.
Did you know that Brazilian Prii don't have an EGR system? Did you know quite few forum members have unplugged the EGR and see no difference in MPG or Performance? Do you think the ECM may (or probably does) change settings to keep the engine happy? And what about the Knock Sensor acting as a safety net, if the ECM changes don't do what you'd think they do? Either way, we're both just blowing smoke as we don't know any of this for sure. Interesting statement about deleting the heat exchanger because it's built into the Cat. Not on a Gen3. Whatever gen you talking about, how can you make that statement? Are you saying the plastic intake manifold can handle EGR without removing the heat ? Then why on earth was it installed in the first place?
Adding the egr in gen3 was a way to marginally maintain near zero emissions while reducing the cost of the gen3 catalytic converter compared to the cat used in gen2.
That's what you think a Prius does? It burns gas, just like any Gasser. 100% of the energy comes from gas. (except PHEV) Stuff comes out of the tail pipe. It burns stuff. We have to STOP BURNING STUFF. Go EV !
As long as the prius burns renewable fuel, it will never be zero emissions. Which is really NOT a thing. Producing the battery alone has produces enough for hundreds of cars for several years. Even a so called full electric car produces emissions, ya gotta charge that thing! Where do you think the power comes from TOO charge it?
It depends on your local grid. Some days the Grid is 100% renewables, even in Kansas, (very windy and sunny days). The average amount of renewables powering the grid goes up everyday! As always, You can't make gasoline on your roof. You can make electricity "TOO charge" your EV Get it?
The break event poin of VW TDI Golf and EV Golf/ID3 is about 100k miles. It may take 200k miles for a Prius vs EV in CO2 emission. I am not sure why people are so overreaccting about global warming. Sincre 1800 until today, the earth is only 1.4C more but our live expectancy is from 35 to more than 67 y old. There are tremendous benefits of using energy resources even it is from oil and coal. If we all (USA, EU,China, India) stop using fuel, the warming of the earth is only marginally decrease. Less than 0.3C because the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere is already saturated. The CO2 level in dinosaurous time is more than 10x of today and life is thriving. CO2 is not the enemy,it is food for plants and algae that produce O2 and life.
I think I remember reading somewhere that the Gen 3 battery is designed to stay within 30% and 70% charge to preserve battery longevity. I'm not sure if this applies only to the lithium ion battery in the Prius Plug-in, or to all models.
