Hi I have a 2002 Prius and several times in the past 4 days my car has died on me when I accelerated from a stopped position. Each time I start up the car, put it in reverse and back out the parking spot with no problem. But as soon as I put the car in Drive and slightly accelerate the car will slightly sputter (like a misfire) and the motor shuts off but I think the electric motor still runs. The hybrid warning lights come on and after I turn the ignition on and off two times it will start back up and run fine. Once it happened while sitting at a traffic light. But most of the time it happens after shifting from R to D. Today I sprayed some Throttle cleaner on the Throttle and I flooded the carburetor but after several attempts got the car running again. Drove it some hours later and went from R to D it worked fine. Drove 10 minutes away and let the car sit for around 15 minutes. Put it in R and to D and bam it shut down again. the car has 150,000 miles on it. I have had it since 112k miles and never had a tune up. I wonder if that is the problem? I am getting over 43mpg right now which is good to me. I don't have any codes to report. I will try and get someone to pull the codes tomorrow or Monday.
1. There is no carburetor, that part disappeared from automobiles in the 1970's. You probably mean the throttle body assembly. 2. Instead of drowning the intake manifold with cleaner, the correct approach is to remove the engine air cleaner assembly, spray cleaner on a clean cloth, and use the cloth to scrub off the throttle body interior and throttle plate. The reason for that is to avoid contaminating the throttle body motor with dirt that will be carried by the used cleaning fluid down the throttle shaft into the motor. 3. Remove the mass air flow sensor mounted on the engine air cleaner housing, and clean it using mass air flow sensor spray cleaner only. Do not use throttle body cleaner on the MAF sensor. 4. Replace the iridium spark plugs now with the correct NGK or Denso iridium plugs (as specified in the owner's manual). 5. Remove the engine air cleaner filter and replace it if you cannot see sunlight passing through when you hold the filter up to the sun.
Although no Priuses ever had carburetors, I think they stuck around longer than many think. I recall hearing of a Hyundai being the last vehicle sold in the US w/a carb. Hyundai Recalls 54,500 Excels in California - Los Angeles Times mentions 1987 Hyundai Excels w/carb. I stumbled across a whole bunch of discussion at Car trivia, last American car with a carb? - SRT Forums - SRT4, SRT6, SRT8, SRT10 & Dodge Forum. Chevrolet Celebrity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia mentions 2 barrel carb V6 as an engine choice from 82 to 86 model years. General Motors 60° V6 engine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia mentions applications as late as the 88 model year.
My previous ride was a Ford Bronco II (amazing turning radius, one selling point of my Gen I was simply being able to match it!). I think the carbureted 2.8L V6 Capri engine it used was not replaced with the 2.9L injected one until the 1989 model year. As a computer geek by day-job, I very much enjoyed something I found in a turn-of-the-century (1900) auto engineering book in the Detroit Public Library auto history section. The writer said then that fuel injection would certainly replace the carburetor as soon as anyone developed a cheap-enough, fast control technology to do the mixture calculations and control the injectors in real time. Et voilà! Equally cool is that a very recognizable, if not quite exact description of the Prius engine-plus-two-MGs-and-power-split-gearing can be read in John Godfrey Parry Thomas's patent US 948436 filed in 1908. Once again, not much left but to wait for technology to control the durn thing. -Chap
Ok I did all of the steps except change the spark plugs. My car was running good all day and then this evening I was sitting at the traffic light and as soon as I pressed on the gas. THUMP!! Car died. As everyone and their mama began blowing the horn at me, I turned the key off and on three times and it finally started. I then drove to the gas station because I am having thoughts that I may have some bad gas in my car. But I will change the spark plugs tomorrow and finally get someone to give me the error codes.. GGGRRRRRrrr
