2011 Prius 2: Yet Another AC Compressor Failure

I’m living in a country in Europe, where cars’ average age is 14 - Hungary.
My experience is that the label on the cars matters regarding reliability. But cars got more complex, so more way to fail. (And if thar has been maintained properly.)
Anyhow reliability for me means that I won’t get broken down on the road 100 miles away from home. AC is not part of that - but I can understand that it may be more important in California.
Why I have chosen Toyota is how day deal with problems happening after warranty is over. Many other company won’t do anything for reduced price after the warranty period.
Toyota extended that for 3ZZ engines with oil consumption for 7 years / ~100k miles. I haven’t seen it with other manufacturer.
Even Toyotas’ quality declining, others may do more - my opinion.

 

OK just after the first page and only reading your comments and going no further.
1: So you had it eight years and how many times have you recharge the air conditioning to keep it in tiptop operating condition so it can continuously not run low on refrigerant in star of your compressor for oil and starve your compressor for a cool flow refrigerant to keep it from overheating.
A little piece of knowledge even mechanics don’t know air-conditioning needs to be serviced just like your coolant system just like your brake fluid just like your transmission fluid just like your engine oil if you have not its failure is due to the owners lack of maintenance look in the mirror.
I guess our pistons in our engines that are made out of Aluminum should deteriorate and crumble to pieces with all the explosions that happened right at their surface traveling at 4000 8000 RPMs.
Just like our pistons the veins never come in contact like the veins that were used for decades in all our power steering pumps before electric steering came into play. Because like our pistons they ride on a thin film of oil and there’s never any metal to metal contact. Unless you allowed your refrigerant level to go low in the oil leaves the compressor and doesn’t return and there’s no extra refrigerant to come back to cool off the electric windings of the electric motor that’s like a 1500 W electric house heater.
So no there is no bad design this type of compressor design has been used for many decades before they were ever used inside in automobile for Prius. there is just defective maintenance procedures or lack of.
And I am biased so I do have to declare I am a Tesla model three owner. And I know I will ruffle some feathers and get the witch hunters out with their pitchforks if I say there’s no competition between the Prius prime in the Tesla three for only $7000 difference in base price tesla walks all over Prius. LOL Boy I’m going to get barbecue for making that statement.

So don’t worry you do not have to be convinced that Toyota is using bad components or DENSO is making a faulty or defective product. I’m actually the guy who tears down compressor is on a daily basis to do the diagnosis of failure relation and it’s usually caused by the owner of the vehicle driving the vehicle with the air-conditioning on when he starts to notice it’s not cooling as good as it used to at this point you’re already starting to coax the oil from the extremely hot operating temperatures of the compressor. By this time you were very washed out 50% of the oil that used to be in the compressor is starting to accumulate up in the evaporator because it cannot return to the compressor. And who’s fault is that.

After all your components have been replaced including the condenser including the expansion valve and mechanically using a air conditioning solvent flush to flush out all the lines the only detrimental parked or procedure that could go wrong is the automotive shop or technician who has a recycler that’s using contaminated refrigerant that has a high moisture content does not evacuated long enough and slightly over charges it by two or 3 ounces or under charge is it by two or 3 ounces into your hand into your face it’ll feel like it’s just fine for now, but failed again later.

And yes Luscious Garage is an excellent video resource and a resource on procedures to save you money and do a good repair on your vehicle. Caroline the owner of Luscious Garage is an outstanding technician on Prius‘s and she’s an outstanding boss and is a cut above all the other automotive general repair facilities. luscious’s garage is where I send all my family members including my sons and my ex-wife and friends who have a Prius I tell them to go nowhere else but Luscious.
If all automotive repair facilities operated like Luscious Garage there would really be no use for Prius chat when it comes to automotive repairs.

 

I forgot to mention since I was responding while I was driving by voice to text without looking at the screen.
Looking back at your statement that you ordered ND-11 refrigerant oil. This has no use and actually could be detrimental to the performance of your air conditioning because the oil does not wear out or does not get used up it does not evaporate. How long is there’s no big gushing leak or any rupture there’s no loss of oil so adding oil is the absolute taboo. Then there’s getting to the fact he wanted to try to top off the refrigerant and this is another one of the Nono‘s that you do not do on our electric compressor most all modern air-conditioning systems today there’s absolutely no topping off. It’s easy to get cold to come out the dash by topping off but like many of my customers have found out by watching YouTube and reading the Internet and trying to top off the refrigerant was also a very easy way to end up having to replace the compressor and the condenser and the expansion valve and flushing the system. So be very careful who you listen to when they tell you to top off your air-conditioning system with a can of refrigerant those are usually the same people you want to turn the other way and run. And then if you want to take it one step further especially for the extremely uneducated mechanical repair shops that you may see stock a whole case of refrigerant cans that are all filled with the oil in the stop leak in the dye and other additives to make it cool better. And they keep topping off the systems with cans after can that accumulate excess of oil in the system and dye and any other leaks stop products and cause more damage.
Oh yeah did I forget to mention to tell you that our Tesla also has the Nippon Denso compressor. And on top of that it’s not a vein compressor it’s a scroll compressor. And with a scroll compressor none other parts never touch each other in the compressing chamber.

 

apparently, even toyota doesn't know any of that stuff, or they don't want potential customers to know electrically driven a/c compressors are more sensitive to maintenance issues.

or, they like selling a/c compressors

 

i wonder how the new prime heat pumps will hold up, and if toyota recommends any service intervals

 

From looking at all the individual components they are all electronics Illinois they should hold up just fine. Compared to a traditional old style heat pump system used in residential that used a mechanical sliding valve and piston within a brass cylinder sometimes made with steel or iron and other materials in the presence of moisture with rust and get sticky and seize.
It’ll also suffer from the same problems have customers not knowing they need to service their air-conditioning every couple years. Having been at a tear down and some of the body shops that I service tearing down the Prius prime has a lot of extra piping and electrical solenoid’s greatly increasing the cost of repair.

As for diagnostics in automotive mechanics have never seen such things with reversing valve‘s and solenoid and getting it through their head they have to comprehend the reverse flow of refrigerant I could see a lot of unnecessary improper diagnostics and parts replacements coming in the future.

I see I’m going to make a lot of money re-repairing what automotive shops attempted to repair.

 

otoh, the majority of these systems seem to be good for 10 or 15 years without service

 

something to show side to side comparison using TechStream on same car first in video Pt 1 high and low side PSI and duct dash temperature @ low 380g. then filling the system to 520g. factory recommended charge in video Pt 2 the low and high side pressure and duct dash TEMP are the same.
The big differance is the compressor is vary hot to the touch and drawing more amperage running down HV battery faster keeping on the engine more often and longer to keep the HV battery charged plus lower gas MPG.
This is what I often see when some one fills or tops off using temperature or pressure to charge ac in a shop on a cooler day it works fine at the time of service. When the customer drives away and the temperature of the day get hotter and the stronger sun load the car losses of cooling occurs.

Video Pt 2 having problem uploading 2ed time trying. I may retry again Pt 2 tomorrow to show after recharge results

 

Finally uploaded “Pt 2 Prius text stream low refrigerant”

Part one was low refrigerant at 380 g video part two complete factory charge of 520 g both pressures and temperatures exactly the same

 

sorry you took it like that.
but it was very apparent you were fed a lot of false information.
Just wanted to give you a little enlightenment and have you look up some other possible conditions that may have put you in the spot of having to replace the compressor.

no not Jesus of AC when I walk on top of water the bottom of my feet still get wet haven’t quite figured out how to walk above the water without getting wet feet yet.

it’s not that every maintenance manual is wrong it’s just that they have to keep it simple and dumb it down and keep their cost of maintenance down. because every manufacture is in the maintenance wars of the lowest price and longest intervals to attract customers. they just need parts to last long enough to get out of warranty so they have return revenue on replacing parts and guaranteeing their dealership franchise return revenue.

How did you know I was in the back of my parents station wagon we’re driving a 1979 Ford LTD country Squire on our way to Wally World. I’m busted again.

 

So how many Prius owners have actually had their A/C serviced when it otherwise appeared to be operating well? And what kind of service was performed?

 

unfortunately not many because they don’t know in the majority of shops do not know and the majority of dealership mechanics do not know.
Remember in our mechanic industry education is not required. Reading books was not required. Mandatory attending seminars in higher education in automotive field was not enforced or not required.
There is no state law or no federal law no mandate no requirement that mechanics receive training. Old school if you could buy a box of craftsman tools and you have a pulse and you show up the job and you learn on the job by sometimes accidentally breaking things and you may have been taught by somebody who broke a lot of things in their lifetime to teach the younger guy to break fewer things while he is learning on the job and that was good enough.

 

So what's done in a routine A/C service when the system appears to be working, blowing cold and not making any unusual noises or weird behaviors? Do you evac the entire system and then refill to factory specs? How often is maintenance needed, who should you take the car to, and what would a service typically cost? Asking because there's nothing in the maintenance schedule and you make it sound like dealers don't have the skills/experience to perform a preventative service.

 

Usually unless you have a failure of some sort you could usually go the first few years three years maybe four but after that every year the vehicle gets older they start to lose a little bit more refrigerant as all the rubber hoses and seals start to age.
Can’t speak for all dealerships some must be better than others but looking at all the reports from different people from all 50 states it doesn’t seem like it.
If everything works fine no noises blowing cold every couple years eve act completely drain the system through a recovery procedure throw it on the vacuum pump for 30 minutes to an hour and then fill it up to factory specifications and go for a two or three more years. Unless you start to notice cooling performance deteriorate by the time you notice it the compressor has been suffering already. Cost will vary from state to state depending on your local labor rate here in San Francisco $130 an hour to $150 an hour all the way up to $210 an hour or more at some dealerships. What time on a re-charge is 1.4 hours then materials or whatever they are in whatever state you were in.

 

Thanks - appreciate your info.