Replaced my engine after a head gasket failure, continuing to have hybrid warning light.

I am beyond desperate.

I have lurked on this forum for roughly a month, which I know because that's exactly when I got my 2013 back from the engine being replaced with a lower mileage nonblown engine bought second hand in Chicago by a family friend.

He'd had a few issues with the hybrid engine light coming on while driving it around after the replacement (to make sure it was alright) and eventually bought it into a hybrid mechanic who didn't have much time to look at it and said it's likely the hybrid battery... Only for the hybrid battery to be fine according to multiple mechanic and app tests. And eventually after connecting a new accessory battery, all codes cleared and didn't come back long enough for me to get my car.

Only for the car to throw a hybrid system error and need to be towed whenever the heat was on and it was forced to accelerate.

The car didn't seem to trip much of anything if driven below thirty sans heat. If anything I would say that was the optimal driving point. I think that's because I drive on the eco mode versus power (a mode that will expedite the death mode) or the little ev mode (which she can go hundreds of miles on before getting the error strangely. Or could, before the car decided to quit permanently.)

Only one code kept hanging on after every reset, so I replaced the first 02 sensor with my local mechanic like a moron only for the car to brick once more and once again need to be towed.

The only codes I've managed to pull recently are the second 02 sensor (for a change) and all four ignition coils.

I'm actually at my wits end and the car is sitting right outside my window mocking me say after day like "you paid all this money and yet I still hate you" and to add insult to injury the nearest hybrid mechanic is an hour away. Thankfully I have triple a but, if you've ever used triple a you understand why towing an hour is like pulling teeth.

Of note, and probably the worst part of all of this, is that I own what was sold to me as a 'snow prius' which is a fancy way of saying there's an aftermarket remote car starter that I'm pretty sure was removed by a mechanic at some point out of pity, what I've been told were once winter tires but apparently became summer tires real quick, and way too much money invested in a car that cannot drive with the heat on, or at all at this moment. (Also the horn didn't work when I bought it. Stand up car salesman. He said it seemed unimportant.)

Codes it pulled right before the fuel ratio/O2 one sensor was replaced are:
P0037
P0354
P2195
P2238
P3190
P0032
P0037

Now it's signaling all of the ignition coils. I can grab those more current codes when it's a little more light out. I wrote them down when I had COVID a week ago and they look like the scribbling of a disturbed child now.

It's not making the amazing death rattle it gave when the head gasket blew and the world ended, it's actually not making any sound at all. Something about this hollow, empty sound that greets me feels almost mocking at this point. At one point I sat in the car for fifteen minutes as it just went lights on, no movements or engine action mode and showed me that the Prius has a secret ultra dead mode that only shows you the gear that you're in and the bright brilliant light of a constant exclamation mark.

Sometimes it will let me run the Bluetooth in this mode, which is nice. I can listen to a little Spotify while I sit and think about all of my bad choices-- strangely, no radio though.

My sweet awful car does not seem to care any longer if you remove the little orange no people death tab and unhook the battery, she just goes straight into this macabre death state that makes me want to cry.

Does anyone have any ideas? Has anyone experienced something similar? Or is this just the curse of the snow Prius continually coming back to kick me in the shins?

 

The 12v was just recharged by my mechanic about a week and a half ago-- I live in a cold climate and it had discharged while waiting for an opening for him to look at the car due to the holidays. It had the same error and locked up on the side of the road about two days later. The winter has been putting it through its paces-- more on that in a second.

It's not an EV, but it does have EV mode. A more accurate description of this would be that it can drive around town and below thirty on EV mode pretty far without any difficulties. I've mainly seen the Hybrid error appearing when it goes above 30 for a period of 22 minutes or more. I live in a rural area surrounded by small towns though, so it's gotten a lot of regen braking usage when working, and I flip on EV when I'm in town driving for the day because the guy who sold it told me to to "put her through her paces." The car drove for about ten days without error when it was used in this way post engine replacement, it was mainly when we took the longer thirty minute drives to metros that it threw the warning lights and went into limp mode.

The aftermarket starter was disable/removed about a year ago. I was told that it was hooked up wrong and killing the battery. I don't know if it was cut or thrown though, which does have me worried. Apparently it looked like a DIY christmas present gone wrong-- it never worked for me but maybe the original owners had a trick.

I don't know if the engine is spinning, but I do know that it was giving the ready light on start up most of the time despite getting the hybrid warning light five minutes later until recently, when it went full PRNDL with no other information given.

The orange kill switch was pushed back in and slid over to my knowledge but an exceptional winter has killed the accessory battery once more. I have a jump pack but it seems to be having problems making full contact with the prius's underhood points so I'm seeing if another friend has smaller cables on their jump. Once I fix this mess I'm hoping to see if there's a way to actually winterize the vehicle. Normally it would have been in the garage, but the tow truck took a few hours and they delivered it pretty late at night in a sort of dead drop (with bill).