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2013 Prius C Engine knock at start and mystery tick

Discussion in 'Prius c Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by onmypath78, Nov 21, 2022.

  1. onmypath78

    onmypath78 New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2022
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    Location:
    North Carolina
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius c
    Model:
    One
    Hi! New to the forum and am hoping someone can give me some guidance...

    I have a 2013 Prius C with 155K miles. I have 2 separate issues (that may or may not be related?): mystery ticking sound and engine knock at cold start.

    1. My car has been making an audible ticking noise that gets faster when I accelerate, and stops immediately when I take my foot off the gas. This happened one time before (within the last 6 months?) and I remember playing around with the gas and observing what I was hearing, and I gave it a little gas and it stopped ticking.
    It recently began to tick regularly, but hasn't ran any differently. I did some research and ended up replacing the spark plugs, ignition coil packs, and pcv valve. For 2 days it ran beautifully and had zero ticking - and I was getting around 56mpg again! The day before yesterday, the ticking came back. And...

    2. This morning when I started the car, the engine knocked for around 30 seconds and then smoothed out. I don't remember seeing a check engine light come on when it happened, but I did pop the hood and look at the engine so I wasn't sitting there looking and could have missed it. This also has happened once before...I can't recall exactly when, but sometime in the last 6mo-1yr but it was much less subtle and only knocked for a few seconds. I also noticed that I only got around 32mpg this morning. I've read numerous posts about blown head gaskets - and I know that can't be ruled out without having it tested. There doesn't appear to be any coolant in the oil and I haven't seen any white smoke/CEL, experienced any misfiring while driving, etc.

    I guess I'm wondering: has anyone else encountered either of these issues? Are they at all related? Where do I go from here?
     
    #1 onmypath78, Nov 21, 2022
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2020
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    Location:
    Durham NC
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    Base
    That's a pretty reliable one NZ engine . Before doing anything wild check engine lights on or not you might want to get the car scanned with the Toyota software doesn't have to be at the Toyota dealer maybe somebody on the list is near you and then see what the live data says in that software and see if you have anything highlighted not a terrible big deal but I wouldn't want to pay the dealer for it unless I had a connection where the dealer might do it for 50 bucks or something free whatever once your armed with that and you're clear or you're not folks can work from there The ticking went away after you did all that work coil spark plugs . Maybe you have a bad coil that's arcing to ground in the valve cover or something strange like that that's more of a snap but some people might call it a tick and it would go up and down with speed as it is ignition or something like that a backing plate on a rotor could make a similar noise but it wouldn't necessarily stop when you took your foot off the gas being internal wouldn't be good so we don't want to go there till we rule out external
     
    #2 Tombukt2, Nov 21, 2022
  3. manydelays

    manydelays New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2023
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    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Vehicle:
    2015 Prius c
    Model:
    Two
    I have noticed this ticking / flapping sound on acceleration as well in my 2015 prius c
     
    #3 manydelays, Feb 13, 2023
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