400K Miles, One Prius/One Owner

Nice! Gives the rest of us hope. The more time I spend with these cars the more I am impressed with them. For you I am sure it is now a quest as others would have quit long ago. Good luck and thanks for the update.
TomK

 

That 395k mile service was big. Did you do a lot of that as preventative maintenance?


iPhone ?

 

Just curious, when your water pump went, what gave you the information that it had failed? In my experience the pump just starts leaking a little then gets worse. I have also heard of impellers corroding and cars start to overheat. I am at 185,000 and just want to have my ducks on a row.
TomK

 

@kutch1...my original water pump failed at 187k. So watch out.

 

So, are you talking about the inverter pump or the water pump? Inverter pump is easy to figure out as that happened in my 2002. Water pump is a different story as I just do not hear much about it. When people say fail, what does that mean? I have yet to have one fail, they just start leaking which is an indicator that it is time to change it out.
TomK

 

Typically the failure mode of the engine coolant pump is a weeping bearing. The alert owner will see this and replace the pump at this time.

If the weeping is ignored or not noticed, then air can enter the engine coolant system over time and cause an engine overheating problem. This is because the engine overflow reservoir depends upon vacuum to draw fluid back down into the radiator, as the radiator fluid level drops. If there is an air leak then the overflow reservoir can remain full while the fluid level in the radiator drops.

Therefore, along with checking the condition of the engine coolant pump bearing, the fluid level in the radiator itself needs to be checked from time to time, by removing the large black plastic cover over the radiator for access to the radiator cap.

Congrats to Chris for reaching 400K miles. A question: have you ever replaced the engine radiator, its hoses and cabin heater hoses?

 

You mention high temp was detected on your Scan Gauge, what is considered a normal range?

 

The engine thermostat opens at ~82 degrees C (180 degrees F) so that is the normal operating temperature.

 

Congratulations!

 

Actually Prius (and most of other cars) have thermostat on the return from the radiator hose. And temperature of the thermostat is temperature where thermostat begins to open. I think Prius thermostat should be fully opened at 92c (198F). Thermostat being in the return from the radiator hose will mean that if radiator and outside air is cold enough thermostat will start opening at 91c (196F) of engine temp. Temp then will immediately drop a lot. Also in below freezing conditions it’s normal for Prius engine to stay 65…70c (149…158F). On hot side of things fans will kick on at 96c (205F).

So I would say that normal operating temperature is 65…96c (149…205F) depending on conditions. And 82…90c (180F…194F) on “normal” conditions.

But after driving with temp information you will know the normal temperatures on your car on your driving conditions.

Sorry for the off topic. And congratulations to CBarr31.

 

So if I am seeing 180F to 195F on days that are 85F, is this normal?

 

Yes

 

Chris, hurray to you and Ema! Now that's a relationship!

 

Congratulations on crossing the 400,000 mile mark! Please be aware that as far as the nay sayers - a.k.a. the great Prius hating ignoramii are concerned, this event cannot possibly happen. This amazing milestone is nothing more than a myth in their clouded eyes.

Y'see, there are still very many "morons of the least kind" out there who eagerly fill up non-hybrid motoring forums with tales of what a "massive con" the Prius is. They eagerly extol it's imagined anti-eco credentials, rabidly punching at their keyboards as they once again tell unwarranted lies about how building the Prius has decimated an eco-system somewhere in Canada. And drowned all the polar bears.

According to these faceless "Keyboard Warriors", we can only achieve anything remotely approaching high MPG if we crawl around everywhere at no more than 20 miles an hour. And the batteries barely last 2 years. And cost £5,000 to replace - every two years of course.

Reading the UK Daily Fail ......sorry, Daily Mail Online just last week, I came across several incensed Prii haters who viciously strived to put down the Prius in the comments section of an article about car manufacturers lying about true MPG figures. They were so angry at the mention of the word "Prius" at all, that they resorted to hurling vicious personal abuse at anyone who so much as stood up for the Prius range. One moron asserted that these vehicles cannot possibly reach 100,000 miles as they were so badly built, they'd fall apart long before then. And you'd have bought 5 x HV Traction Battery's during the same period!!!

I did my best to destroy these myths and expose the brainless oafs for what they really were, but.....they were not having any of it. A wide range of expletives were used to describe Prii owners. I was really quite appalled. If any of them could read, they'd easily find Prius Chat, and read all the articles written by the very people who own and usually, happily drive Prii with pleasure.

But.....no. It seemed far easier to spout a great many untruths and equally damaging tales about how evil and nasty the Prius has always been. I was wantonly, roundly derided for daring to mention that the Prius was good for about 250,000 miles at least (with regular servicing).

So, here's a Prius that has done over 400,000 miles.......but in the warped temporal bubbles theses nincompoops inhabit, this cannot happen. Sometimes, I really despair for the future of humanity as we presently know it - especially with such ill-informed ignoramii going to great lengths to parrot fictitious fibs about the Prius.

Once again, congratulations on crossing the big 400,000 mile mark. This REAL event will now unfortunately join those myths about Bigfoot, Yeti, The Chupacabra, The Moon landings that never happened, and every other truly bizarre conspiracy theory.

Some humans!!! And they wonder why any possible extraterrestrials out there won't make direct contact with us............D'oh!!!