Long Shot- Prius Mechanic near WNC?

Maybe @TMR-JWAP can help you find someone?

 

There are people all around the place here that'll do it you'll just have to call around and get estimates from people this is a lot of work more or less and many times it doesn't turn out right and then the mechanic is stuck with your car because you're not going to pay for it and on and on and on this is a likely event to happen with this model so mechanics kind of think about things like this in the back of their mind when they are aware and if they're not aware they're probably not interested in really fooling with the car this is like a lot of these new cars like you see on who these garage and hoovies and the like a lot of guys just don't like to work on this kind of stuff because of the problems that are waiting in the wings huh TMJ may know somebody up this way especially in South Carolina that's where he is I do believe I don't really have any contacts in the mountains but to put a head gasket on a 2ZZ engine is not anything that anybody needs to be real qualified to do they're not going to really have the hybrid system apart they're going to have the top end of the engine apart which is exactly the same as the Corolla exactly a few extra wires and switches but we're not talking anything serious so any garage that's capable and does a lot of Corolla work will not have a problem putting a head gasket on a Prius It's the same engine so that should be lots of places in Asheville that's a hippie town lot of Corollas lotta Toyotas in general shouldn't be a big deal this is not something that needs to be Prius specific that I promise you but there are some decisions that have to be made somebody needs to pull the head check the deck height or the piston height sticking out of the deck Make sure that everything is okay many times it's not and this is where you'll get stopped and get out of the car or you'll be buying $1,800 extra parts and whatnot to go with this near $3,000 labor job that'll put you over $4,400 in the Asheville area so now you're going to have $9,000 and what year is this thing 2011 or something generation 3 Prius He won't see me doing any kind of thing like this year you'll never get yourself out of this You're already in over your head for the most part and it could get worse I am sorry to have to be the bearer of bad news but take my words and heed your actions If not you may be back with more horror stories but don't take my word for it do check around and see what you can make happen like I say you're dealing with a Corolla engine here the 2ZZ FXE in the Toyota Corolla is the 2ZZ FE and the ones ZFE which I have several here they're just not in a Prius they're in the bread and butter car called the Corolla so there really shouldn't be any excuses in Asheville like I say.

 

if you can find someone to install an engine, call hybrid pit in california, and ask how much to ship a rebuilt engine to your mechanic. they have a good reputation

 

The guy who works on your son's Honda probably won't have any trouble putting a head gasket on the 2ZZ FXZ engine I would say but that needs to be looked at carefully before spending the money and making the determination to put the head gasket in place If the car just started rattling and you haven't driven it to death with these conditions you have a good chance the head needs to come off it needs to have the Pistons rotated up the top dead center and measure each pistons extension sticking up out of the block in thousands of an inches. If that passes that inspection then there's a good chance a head gasket will work now you've got the head off with lots of miles on it so you need to determine whether you're going to send the head out to have it shaved the valves ground generally cleaned up and made new or spend $300 with any of the rebuilders that have them bagged up and ready to go usually a local machine shop is going to cost you more money than a head ready to go from say A1 cardone advance Auto A1 cardone is one of the biggest rebuilders on the planet so I would say get ahead that's been redone and ready to go but if you think you can get it done cheaper locally have at it I've not been able to have that done and I have connections with machine shops in the town I live in in the city of medicine Durham North Carolina still can't make that happen or somebody's working for free or giving me something for nothing which I have had that happen but I don't generally partake in those antics. What I'm saying personally is I have a 2013 Persona that's a beautiful car black cherry all the trimmings boom same problem been down that road broken again didn't even make $30,000 miles on the new stuff or the newer stuff or whatever have a 2010 solar roof car about as nice as the persona loaded same problem I'm used to making $400,000 mi on all of my Toyotas for the last 45 years 170,000 is not acceptable to me even $240,000 is starting to push it from what I'm acclimated with from Toyota all these years now some of these newer folks that are in there early '40s and what have you this may be perfectly acceptable but it isn't to me The threshold of what you will put up with is driven purely by you internally me personally no I wouldn't be doing this We prefer the generation too You don't have to have anything in the vehicles they run for $500,000 miles and you're buying tires air filters a battery every 10 years a 12 volt every five to seven and pretty much boring yourself to death and that's when you start looking for generation threes and fours and then maybe you'll remember oh no we don't want to do that. I need cars to drive not talk about online and repairing generally speaking or that's how it has been and even now while I don't have anywhere to go I still wouldn't be messing around with the car that's planned obsolescence that's just not my cup of tea personally

 

only cost most likely. a new short block ain't cheap, probably worth more than the car.

 

There is a guy on Prius chat somewhere if you can search, goes around the country and changes engines in your yard in one day if I remember. He seemed very reasonable on price too.....does anyone remember his alias?

 

There are people all over the country that has taken up this work there's a guy up in Indiana and a guy and Arkansas or something like that that offers 6-hour engine changes You can sit in his waiting room or go down to the hotel or goof off in the shop with him all kinds of stuff supposed to be really nice guy so on and so on and so on so all of these things are possible You can make them happen if you can justify or whether you have to or not I don't you know I don't know but all of those things can happen absolutely yeah man I just don't feel like slinging engines and parts in and out of these two gen three's that are sitting here they've just been a grave disappointments more than anything no matter what gets put into them or goes on they've just been very disappointing whereas all the other models I've had for the last many years as many have y'all have been living have been pretty wonderful matter of fact I can't even think of a car that was as bad as the generation 3 in the 47 years I've been with Toyota I can't even the Tercel great little car nope not the Mazda GLC the for sale was a great little car etc I guess one that might might run a far behind second would be my 71 Toyota Celica 18 r 8R engine from a forklift but still that was even a pretty great car. Me personally I would walk away from the mess and grab a generation to as fast as I could cling on the one from wherever I get it towing lot and other person old folks home they're they're around and everywhere and some of them are in very good condition and you can buy for very reasonable money I'm not talking about 5,000 either but you will see them on the marketplace for that and some people will pay so you can count on many people asking and they work down from there

 

Call your Toyota dealer and ask them what a new 2ZZ FXE engine for your Prius would cost and that's what you're talking when we're talking about the used engine market in the USA you'd be hard pressed to find anything under $150,000 mi for the same engine from the JDM market which is from Japan You can get used takeouts which supposedly have under $85,000 mi on them the way some of them look and all of that you might wonder but anyway be that as it may I used to do those swaps back in the day quite a bit I tried it on one of my generation 3 Prius everything went nicely successful everything was clean look good car ran about $24,000 mi at best and started rattling again and I just said yeah food bar this new EGR valve everything is clean so on and so forth huh We know basically what we're doing over here and this model or this one or these two are not it and so rather than more or less chase my tail I go with the $500,000 mi car that I know because I'm not in it to please the Joneses anymore I meant it to save my money and ride comfortably and air condition and all that without having to have a new car every 3-4 years and bank loans and all of that never had one in my life and I'm not starting now

 

Is there such a thing as new engines for older cars?

 

I imagine if you call Toyota up and you ask them the cost of a new 2ZZ FXZ they can tell you whether they can provide it for you in any kind of timely manner might be another story I would think because of its modular design and build what would happen is is predominantly most people would buy the center section with the reciprocating mass already put together and just assemble their girdle their lower pan and plop ahead on it and be done pretty much any dingbat could come up and make this happen with just a few tools literally without breaking the bank I did my first one kind of like this not knowing anything about a car when I was about 22 on a 2TC 1600 hemi-head Corolla motor fitted new rings rods and mains with the block sitting in the car even some nicer Pistons stock rods and took an afternoon to assemble car running the next day I had never put a ring compressor on a piston and dropped an assembled piston in a boar in my life took 30 minutes to clamp up the floor and drop them in the bores put the engine up dry with no oil except free lube on the mains and rod bearings. Started the engine right up the ring seated in the first few strokes of the engine going up and down and that engine made 448,000 mi and was still running when the car went away due to rust You don't do that to these newer things because the bottom ends and the reciprocating mass is all numbered and all the journals are numbered and all the bearings are numbered and certain sizes and all of this stuff by the time you round up all this and make it happen you have almost the reciprocating mass built from Toyota and pieces laying on your shop bench might as well just buy the reciprocating mass and assemble your metal pieces around it The ones without holes in them.

 

The part that always puzzles me about when we worked on engines when we were young is that it was before the internet and all we had was a somewhat vague repair manual and telephone on the wall that allowed us to call people and ask questions. Like how in the world was I was able to replace a crankshaft on a Yamaha RZ350 back in 1984 when I was 16 years old and not do it wrong? I guess maybe it was because as you said, engine design was much more simple back then.

 

Maybe Peter Principle at work: the more info at your fingertips, the more complexity will increase.

 

"2ZZ FXE" has appeared a few places upthread.

It's a 2ZR FXE.

At least there's a limited chance for confusion, as I don't think the 2ZZ engine is made in FXE flavor (or not yet, anyway).

 

I was same way as a kid... I didn't realize at the time that the pressure I felt putting something in the house back together before my mom got home from work would one day turn into the pressure of finishing work on someone's vehicle in time for them to pick it up as planned.

Of course I prefer gardening and tree pruning because If I do something wrong it doesn't mean the owner can no longer get around...