1.8L starting rattle, knock, events

I got 9600 miles I bought the car 10 months ago! still what I have read on internet seems to be the VVT-i but why then only happens in cold weather and parked for a long period of time? Oil? controller? valves?

 

We are fortunate to have 2 identical 2010 Prius III's. I have never experienced this sound in our own Prius. Today I started my son's Prius and the noise from the engine compartment was there. In another post it was mentioned about the injector leaking, I like this possibility, but this does not sound like a piston hammer. I have heard that many times in my life...this sounds more like it's coming from one of the electrical motors.
As if the operator was putting the car in forward & reverse very,very fast. We can't feel it in the seat of our pants because the transaxle is in park.

That's my opinion !!!!!!

 

This is ridiculous....I'm scared stiff my engine is damaged now....what the heck is going on with this? Surely it can't be that difficult for Toyota with their resources to identify what this issue is and either deal with it or tell us all its nothing to worry about?

Very frustrated.

 

In another post i read where the dealer told a Prius owner that it was called "hogging"

This sounds a lot like this:

What happens when ac supply given to dc motor

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The motor will slightly oscillate if its enough voltage but will not run properly as the voltage is changing phase. So the motor is trying to go forward and then reverse say 60 times a second if its hook to a wall socket.

Read more: Answers.com - What happens when ac supply given to dc motor justify
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Could this be a rectifier going bad...or that is just bad from the start.??

 

Man I have the car one week in the dealer and they can't reproduce the noise or either fix what the car has!! I'm scared to death when I pick my car tomorrow probably is in shambles! I hate mechanics screwing with a new car made in Japan and leaving all kind of stuff out of place! loose! etc...

We have to wait until Toyota release a TSB, for now cross your fingers to avoid passing 60K miles and loosing the warranty before a fix is available.

 

My car often sits for weeks at a time unused. I have never had this happen after the car has sat for days or weeks. The only time that it has happened to me so far was after I moved the car about 10 feet (engine came on for about two seconds) and then I left it sit until the next day.

 

Thats what I did when this happened to me. Moved the car 20 feet. Left it over night. It was cold. Horrible start in the morning.

There is a definite pattern here. Toyota must read these posts. Tell us what is going on!!

 

Until Toyota comes forward with a TSB for the Prius on this subject, there are a couple of things that you can do to prevent this from happening.

1) If you are going to move your car a short distance, use EV mode if available. If not, let the engine continue to run until it completes its warmup cycle if not too cold. If cold, let it run for 4 or 5 minutes.
2) If you get the first evidence of rough start, floor the accelerator pedal. The rough start will end immediately.
3) If you have moved it a short distance and stopped it, in the morning floor the accelerator as soon as you see the Ready light come on.

 

I agree that there is a pattern with this problem. As I mentioned we have 2 Prius III's. As I was clearing the driveway of snow is why I moved both cars. I did exactly the same start & move 15' with both cars. Only my son's Prius has made this noise.

I don't think all the cars will do this.......maybe it's a certain part, from a certain outside manufacturer that does it. Until they (Toyota) can find why it happens, they can't fix it.

 

Mine has 24,000 miles, and I've had no problem

 

Given how people are generating this issue I'm putting strong odds on it ICE related and not electric motor.

 

It's a shame the poll for this thread is closed, as I suspect the number of Priuschatters who've suffered this anomaly is now far greater. I too feel it is ICE related and is most likely associated with the ICE not going completely thru its normal warm-up cycle, followed by an extended 'cold soak' of at least eight or more hours. The one time it occurred here was during a start-up roughly two days after a brief move in our driveway during late summer weather. Consequently, we now always make sure our ICE completes its warm-up cycle before shutting down.

Incidentally, we've not had any problems with rough starting after several 1 to 2-week periods of non-use, nor has this anomaly occurred during several periods of freezing weather.

I'm convinced Toyota is now well aware of this problem in the Gen III; but will they ever admit it if resolving it requires a worldwide recall that would involve extensive labor expenditure at each of their dealerships?


FWIW, our Pri's manufacturing date was 6/09....

 

Even if cold weather is a contributing factor it's definitely an ancillary one, at best. I think ambient temp has little if anything to do with it and dito on how long the car has been off. It really does seem to do with the cold-soak and certainly Toyota is aware of it, since we know their engineers visit these forums and there are now youtube vids about it even.

 

I have had this happen to my Prius one time. It is used as a daily driver and has 20,000 miles (I bought it 6 months ago with 13k miles). One weekend morning I went out and turned the car on to see what the outside temperature was (my cable tv was out). The temperature was 19 degrees. I turned the car back off. I do not think that the car was on long enough for the ICE to turn on, unless it was just turning on when I turned it off. Later that afternoon (temperature in mid 40s) I turned on the car to drive to town. As soon as the ICE started, it started rattling. I thought that there might be something caught in an engine pulley hitting the chassis. I turned the car off and opened the hood and did not see anything. I turned the car on and the ICE ran fine. It has been almost a month since then and I have had no further problems. It is rare for me to turn the car on and off without driving it and I normally start driving the car before the ICE starts (unless the windshield is iced up).

 

We live in upstate New York and had one rough start a few days ago. I backed it up a little bit to clean the ice on driveway and drove it to original position afterwards. It happened the very next morning. The pattern is definitely -- short drive, cold overnight, the very next start. Has anybody successfully engaged dealership in this issue? I will bring it up at my 5K (first) maintenance.

 

By the way, our manufacturing date was 10/2010

 

I haven't had time to pick my way through all the info on the ICE 'problem', but I haven't had it happen yet in 5,000 miles.

Here's the thing.
I've operated the car as low as 27-degrees (F), and I typically stop the engine twice a day before it goes through its warm-up cycle.
I'm kinda anal that way. I don't like the engine running at zero MPH, and I have a gate at work that has to be opened-driven through-closed and relocked, and then there's a traffic light 200 feet beyond that that I have an almost zero percent chance of catching green.

Result: At least two daily interrupted warm-up cycles....sometimes 4-6.

So....If the ICE bucking and bronking is a G3 thing that's caused by low temps and/or interrupted warm-up cycles, I haven't seen this phenom in my first 5,000 miles of Prius bliss.

I'll keep looking for it.

 

I'm highly confident it's an interrupted warm up cycle. Not all interruptions cause this but essentially all occurrences of it followed an interrupted cycle. You may not be letting it sit long enough to notice the occurrence.

 

Roger that.
I'll keep looking for it.

5,000 miles isn't much of a history to draw on, but it's all I have with this car.
If it is an interrupted warm-up cycle, then that answers the question I was wondering earlier, which is why Ford, GM, an Mercedes does not experience this phenom with their Atkinson cycle ICEs....at least as far as I've been able to determine.

I'll keep reading and observing.

 

I think you're right. It happened to me for the first time this morning when leaving for work. It sounded like the valves and piston were knocking against each other. It lasted a few seconds as I put it in R it stopped. Last night, instead of walking to my neighbors down the street, I jumped in the car and drove there, mostly EV. On the trip home, the ICE started and when I pulled into the garage, it was still running when I pressed the Power button to shut if off. I'm going to mention it at my first service appointment, but based on what I'm reading here, no damage done.