1.8L starting rattle, knock, events

I recommend you take that long birthday drive, and don't worry about it.

 

Happened tome 2 days ago...

40f, cold start, had moved the car 50 yards the night before.

Badly Shuddered for 5 seconds or so. Also, check engine light was on for 1 day...

18,000 miles.

Seems ok now, but my confidence in the car is a little dented.

This thread has conflicting posts about how serious this is, with little concrete advice what to do, if anything, so im a little confused.

Can someone re-assure / help or worry me?!!!

 

I've never had it happen in over a year of ownership. I drive 70mph and even higher when the roads are clear. I love the 1.8L engine in the 2010 Prius.

 

Have had my Gen III for just over a year now and have had this happen two, or three times. It is ALWAYS something that concerns me when it happens. It has usually happened in the cooler weather, but my car is always garaged and so 50 degrees is probably the coldest it is at start. I've never had it happen when I have been traveling with it, such that it is parked outside. I have 21K on it already, it has been on several two to three thousand mile trips, + many shorter ones. It has always happened right here at home, and I have had the oportunity to drive it right afterwards for many miles. It is not something that you can take to the dealer and expect it to "replicate". It is a rare event. The last time it didn't catch me so "off guard" and I floored the accelerator. It reved up a few hundred rpm, but it did clear the roughness, but by then the 5 to 10 seconds had passed as well.... Would like to know what causes it, but don't feel it is anything serious. I doubt that the dealers have a clue, either.

 

Oh, if it was a bad engine. What? The new Lexus lower model hatchback will offer the very same engine. H250h? Bad 1.8L.??? 2011.

 

Correction..... the model Lexus is the 200H model. The very same engine 1.8L. I love it.

 

I've been considering the purchase of a GIII, but this rattling issue has me glad that there's no rush.

I think Toyota does know there's a problem, there's a TSB which seems to confirm it, but if anyone knows that it's serious, they're not telling.

Here's the powertrain warranty:

Powertrain Warranty: 60 months or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. This includes the Engine (cylinder block, head, internal parts, timing gears & gaskets, the timing chain/belt, valve covers, oil pan, oil pump, engine mounts, engine control computer, water pump, fuel pump, seals and gaskets). It also covers the Transaxle, Motor, and Generator (case, all internal parts, transaxle mounts, seals and gaskets). It covers the Front-Wheel Drive System (drive house and internal parts, axle shafts, drive shafts, CVJ, front hub and bearings, seals and gaskets).

 

I am also glad that I bought an '08 model Prius instead of a GenIII because of this issue.
Someone who is experiencing the problem will have to monitor oil pressure with a direct reading gauge which will give readings in psig to determine if is an oiling issue on start-up.
My personal opinion on the matter is that a fix has been worked out by the Mech Engs and it is VERY EXPENSIVE so marketing has decided that it will be performed on an 'as needed basis' for customers who can duplicate the problem or sent off to the Field as a TSB.
If the problem can be reliably repeated after 60 mo or 60,000 miles even better as the warranty will have expired by then and the customer has to suck the costs.

 

I have had this happen to me twice in 21,000 miles. Each time was after a short move from driveway to garage and stopping the ICE before warmup cycle was complete. On cold morning start, I had a rough start.

The first time I stopped and restarted the ICE and the rough idle was gone. On the second event, I floored the gas and the rough idle stopped.

I have just learned that for short moves to use EV mode if available or let the car complete its warmup cycle before stopping. I have not had this happen again in over a year now. If I do, I will just floor the gas pedal immediately to stop it. Tumbleweed floors his gas pedal before each start to prevent this from happening.

I personally am not worried about this issue and I certainly would not pass up the many other benefits of owning this vehicle just because of this issue.

 

question - How do I know when the engine has completed its warm up cycle?...how long does that take - say if I do a short move from driveway to garage....

 

If it is not really cold outside, the engine will shut off when it completes its warmup cycle. That is when I turn it off.

If it is cold the engine will continue to run until it warms the cabin up to the temp you have set on the Climate Control. In this case, I generally let it run 3 or 4 minutes before turning it off.

 

I have a 2010 prius with approximately 52K miles on it now. I bough it new and have always had my local toyota dealer perform all of the maintenance. Alway use 0W-20 synthetic oil. I drive about 45K miles per year.

I have had this same problem occur on my prius about 4 times since purchasing the car about a year ago. It is a violent shaking of the engine and it sounds like the engine is running without any oil. It is very violent and very scary. Each time it has happened to me it has been on start up, and only after I have left the car sitting and unused for 7-10 days. It also seems to happen in colder weather. I live in coastal SC, so it doesn't get too cold here. I have obviously asked my local dealer to fix the problem and have also called Totota corporate, as I do not feel my new investment was meant to perform like this. There has been no resolution to date, but it just happened to me again and I'm taking the car back into the dealership this week. The major problem with taking it to the dealer is that they have trouble replicating the problem. Although, my dealer did keep my car a week, and couldn't replicate the problem...but when I picked up my car my service advisor escorted me to my car....and guess what, it happened with him standing right there. So, now the dealers staff has verified, but of course they couldn't duplicate it after trying again. So, no resolution to this point, which disappoints me. Of course the factory warranty will run out soon, so I feel stuck. This is obviously a problem for other owners as well as myself, so I think something should be done to fix it. Who knows what damage is being done to the engine when this happens and how it will hurt chances of resale when you show your service paperwork to a potential buyer.

But, for all you owners having the same problem....let me know what you think....see if letting your car site for a week in colder weather (32 degrees or so) will replicate the problem. Of course, it is rare that my car sits 10 days in cold weather.

Has anyone had any success with dealers in finding the problem and fixing it? Is the TSB I've seen for prius, or corolla?

 

PLEASE STOP THIS

Why are some people putting premium gas in the Prius? It is not helping anything; it is a 100% waste of money.

 

high5tower,

I responded to your PM before I read this post. Read my PM.

Try doing what Tumbleweed does and floor your accelerator and hold it down each time before starting the car. He has not had the rough start since he has been doing this.

If you forget and get the rough idle, floor the accelerator immediately and the roughness will level right out.

From what I read and understood in the previous posts was that the TSB was for the Corolla but the Prius has a similar engine.

I would make sure that your dealer notes somewhere on a service report that he witnessed the rough start of your car even if he could not duplicate it. Then you have a record if this happens again once the car is out of warranty.

Dwight

 

I had the rough start this morning for the first time. Symptoms were just like you stated. I backed the car out thursday to wash it. EV was not available since it was cold, and I think the battery was low. Engine started normally, but only for maybe 15 seconds. Same going back into the garage and then it sat there until this morning.

Then this morning, it was cold and I had the knocking on startup. It went away fast, and never did it while driving around.

I always use Phillips66 or Shell gas (both Top Tier) and with no ethanol (which we can still get here in OK).

Car has about 16,000 miles.

 

No problem with mine and I live in Western Pennsylvania. I have left my car sit for a month without starting it it starts right up in the cold. I dont drive it in the NaCl, CaCl or KCl that they put on the roads in Pennsylvania for the "wusses". I hope they (Toyota) figures out your car's problem!

 

How will flooring it do anything, though? I've found that when the car is not in gear flooring it appears to do nothing whatsoever because the car knows it doesn't intend to move and thus accepts no throttle demand from the driver.

 

I do not know the details of how it works but I can tell you from experience that it does work. Tumbleweed posted this several months ago. I tried it the second time that I had the rough start and it did level right off as soon as I pressed the accelerator.

Tumbleweed has developed the habit of flooring the accelerator each time before he starts and has not had the rough start since doing this.

If you press the accelerator with the car in park, the engine will increase RPM slightly.

 

This turned out longer than I thought. With apologies:

Ok, I went back and read the whole thread. Few thoughts and questions:

1. Does anyone know if the 2ZR-FXE engine is an interference design? Some engines have enough valve/piston clearance, even at full valve opening, that piston/valve contact cannot happen. They do this in case the valve drive fails and the cam stops.

2. Even if the engine is an interfering design, does anyone know if the pistons can hit the valves at the travel-limit of the intake valve timing servo (actuator, whatever)? Why would they use a servo with enough travel to time the valves so severely to allow contact?

3. Any significnt valve/piston contact will severely damage the valves/pistons. The engine will never be the same even after a short event. So, I really doubt we're hearing valve/piston contact noise. If there's anyone out there who's has this, and has a boroscope, maybe he can look inside through a plughole and check the piston crown. Contact marks are easy to see.

4. When it happened to me, it just sounded like really bad misfire, or complete lack of ignition in one or more cylinders. I had the hood up and the engine was shaking alot, which can knock alot of stuff around (like the exhaust in its soft mounts). 4-cylinder engines failing to ignite on even one cylinder, can shake violently, especially at idle.

5. White smoke coming out the exhaust of an engine with a cold exhaust system on a cold day is normal. It's not smoke, it's water droplets...actually fog. Exhaust has alot of water vapor in it. As the exhaust leaves the tailpipe, it mixes with the surrounding air. As it mixes, two things happen: it cools (which tends to condense water making fog), and it's diluted with air (which tends to re-evaporate the water or dilute the water vapor preventing it from condensing). If the exhaust gas is cool, as it mixes with cold air, water can condense before the dilution re-evaporates it. If the exhaust gas is released hot, it dilutes before it can cool enough for water to condense. That's why the fog goes away as the exhaust system heats up. On a humid day it takes more dilution before it goes away. It's all normal and not related to the misfire. If it never goes away, then you have a problem.

6. From the posts here, it seems that it's correlated to cold weather and by previous shutdown during initial warmup of a cold engine. Where does that lead us?

7. Software: It's possible for there to be a software bug that erroneously uses some parameter saved or "remembered" from the prior shutdown state. I'd say this is unlikely since storage of some variable would have to be done explicitly by the coder..not likely to be done intentionally. Usually the outputs are set based on present input values or averages from many past runs (like for fuel injector trim), not values from only the last run. So, I'd say anything's possible with software, but this one's unlikely.

8. Some hydraulic component sticking: This is more likely in my experience. A hydraulic rudder actuator that stuck when cold caused a few 737 crashes many years ago. It took like 3 crashes to figure out because, get this, it was so hard to reproduce. Very generally speaking, hydraulic systems are unhappy when cold. Maybe it's unresilient rubber seals (ask NASA), or differential thermal expansion of parts with close clearances (ask Boeing), or fluids that are hard to pump when cold leading to high pressures (ask Allied Signal about their Fram Honda motorcycle filters). This would make the VVTi servo for the intake valve timing a leading candidate since it's a hydraulic servo using cold motor oil as the motive fluid.

However, in the video, the problem seemed to go away for a second, then come back?! A stuck actuator would not come and go like that. Once popped free back to its correct position, it should stay there.

Same thing for excess fuel. Once running ok, I'd expect it to stay that way.

Here are 3 good articles on the VVTi controller:

http://www.motor.com/magazine/pdfs/042010_04.pdf
http://www.motor.com/magazine/pdfs/052010_04.pdf
http://www.motor.com/magazine/pdfs/062010_04.pdf

If the locking pin in the servo doesn't engage, for whatever reason, then upon startup you get a cam phase problem. The ECU will see this via the cam sensor and crank sensor and then try to recover the timing through the oil control valve. That's the coming and going of the sounds in the video. It can't really do this until oil pressure is up, which takes a few seconds on a cold engine.

Yet to be resolved: Why does shutting down a cold engine cause this problem?

 

Had this happen yesterday morning - and it's not the first time. Started engine - rough, rattling noise - shut it down immediately. Did this three times in a row. On the fourth try, it started smoothly. However, I'm now noticing some valve tap. I hope my Prius engine isn't irreparably damaged.

Next time, should I try flooring the accelerator during the rumble?

All this noise points to an 7000 mile engine that's aging - quickly.

I know this may be wishful thinking, however: Is documenting this nastiness via date-stamped video - then sending the video by certified mail to Toyota - enough to ensure a plausible (legal) argument for extended coverage, after Toyota finally gets around to publicly admitting that at least some Gen III Prius's have a problem - and after my power train warranty expires?