Has the rough cold start issue being corrected?

Same issue here, loud and vibration our of character. Occurred once in 4 engine start up.

 

And many (dealerships) won't necessarily do the repair, even if you complain of a knocking/rattling on startup, unless they can repeat it themselves (your video evidence notwithstanding). So you are then left to cough up the money yourself, or buy/rent another car and leave the Prius with them for a month until they can repeat it.

I've already blown $22 (one-day rental, which I should have declined knowing how difficult this can be to reproduce). Might as well pay for the repair instead of renting a car for a month in the vain hope they can repeat it.

 

Interesting re the video evidence. My Prius has been sitting under the same conditions as before when it happened. I was going to have the cell phone video going when I start it up tomorrow. I still will do that and hope nothing occurs.

 

I'm curious, to those that have had the problem, do you use ECO mode a lot?

 

Not all that much, no.

 

If you want to argue with the dealer, the TSB does not state they have to duplicate the condition, it states to perform the repair if the customer complains..

Try calling the customer experience line and tell them you've had the issue and know there's a fix.. They may help get the dealer to agree to perform the TSB

 

Actually, the TSB says to

"1. Use Techstream to check for DTCs, and confirm the condition per the Introduction,"

which are the symptoms under discussion. Unfortunately, this particular TSB (unlike the engine mount TSB ) says nothing about the customer complaining being sufficient cause. Therefore, dealers have chosen to squirm their way out of this repair by forcing customers to demonstrate a condition that happens 1% of the time, under very specific conditions.

 

An Update: Dealer replaced my intake manifold about a week ago. So far so good!

 

True, for me I simply mentioned the problem and the dealer took the initiative to call Toyota tech support in California who then approved a new intake manifold at no cost! A few days later Toyota Customer Care gave me a call to confirm my problem and reiterate the fix that Toyota had approved. I am very happy with the treatment I have gotten up to now. I have had the new intake manifold for about a week now and have not had the knocking issue.

 

My dealer wouldn't replace the rear engine mount either, though I may raise a ruckus and point out that part in the procedure of the TSB that stresses the only requirement to implement the fix is a customer complaint.

 

In addition to what antiglare said, I did call Toyota national and made the complaint, getting a nifty case # and everything. They deferred all responsibility to the techs at the dealer.

Sigh.

 

Well I blew it. My Prius sat again in a 55-56 degree garage for 8 days w/o being started. Went out this A.M. to take her out, opened the hood checked the oil all was fine. Got my cell phone video ready and started the car. When the ICE fired up it started a milder knocking. It almost sounded like plastic hitting or vibrating against something else. I did try pinpointing the location of the knock but it stopped before I could do it. I thought the video was running but it was in stand-by. Arghhhhh.

So that's twice now it's done it after sitting for a week and also after being run long enough to thoroughly warmup before shutdown. It may be another month or more before it sits that long again. I wonder if I should talk to my SA at the dealer before then. I wonder if it's an oil flow issue or if the TSB is the fix. Driving it daily under any conditions, short trip, long drive doesn't seem to produce the knock for me, only extended parking.

 

Talk to your dealer, and DO NOT CONFUSE THIS ISSUE WITH THE ENGINE MOUNT PROBLEM!!

 

had that cold start happen to me once in 30k miles. it happened 2 months ago & i was on a waiting list for my car when it was first released so it's been a little while. thing freaked me out it was so loud. wish i could remember if i had a short trip before turning it off but i know i didn't start it for 3 days before the noise. pretty annoying but not as bad as the lurging forward while the car is in park & my foot is no where near the gas pedal ... still can't get over Toyota telling all it's owners that they must be touching the gas pedal ...

 

Greetings from Finland. We had here -25°C (-13F) and both our 2011 Prius and 2010 Auris HSD (same drivetrain as prius) had extremely loud noise after staring them. At first I thought this would be related to operating cycles in cold start, but the noise did not disappear even after 10 minutes of driving. I noted that using normal mode and by pressing more gas during acceleration, the engine would rev higher and the vibration was considerably less.

I concluded that the engine mounts loose their elasticity in this cold conditions, hence the normal engine vibration transmits to the chassis. When returning home in the afternoon, it was warmer, about -20C and the vibration was amost gone.

This really made me worried for a while, so I wanted to share the experience.

 

Hi all, first post here. Just wanted to let you know the Lexus CT200h platform suffers from the same issues (makes sense it's the same engine & drivetrain).

Occasionally on cold start the combustion engine has a terrible vibration and knocking that occurs for the first 1-2 seconds of ignition. It sounds like an oil starvation issue where the engine isn't receiving proper lubrication for the first few seconds (hence the audible knock), then once lubricated quiets down. It's only happened a handful of times and I've never been able to capture it on video (too seldom to predict).

I had my first 5k mile check up with my Lexus dealer recently and informed them of the situation. They were not surprised by my description of the issue and stated other complaints have been received. However they also reported that at this time there is no fix from Lexus/Toyota and unless they can reproduce the issue, there was nothing they could do short of document my compliant in the service record.

Does anybody know what the source of this issue is or what Toyota plans to do about it?

 

^Thanks... I found the intake manifold TSB for this. Unfortunately however the TSB also indicates that the malfunction indicator lamp (aka check engine light) must be on with a handful of diagnostic trouble codes (DTC's) recorded. In my case each time this rough start has occurred I throw no CEL's or produce any codes, just rough idle for a few seconds. So even if I were to record or capture it on video, my dealer isn't going to execute the costly TSB without the MIL & DTC's present.

 

XCNTRK......... That is BS by the dealer,I had my intake manifold replace 2 weeks ago........ I had no CEL or codes but I had to go to the dealer and leave it overnite for they can sart it in the mornnig wen it is cold...........

 

Contact the Customer Relations person @ your dealership (I assume Lexus would have one as well) and explain what is happening and refer to PriusChat.com and the other owners that are having the issue. That and contacting Toyota Customer Care took care of it for me. My Prius goes in tomorrow for three T-SBs that were previously denied by the dealership.