Rough start up

EDIT: Forum mods I posted this in the wrong area by accident. Could you possibly move it to the Prius v maintenance section?


Background info: 2014 Prius v with 119k miles now. Has the updated piston rings from what I've researched. Normal external temps for a July FL morning at about 10am. Changed the oil about 3500 miles ago and the color looks good. Plugs and coolants have not been changed as far as I know.

Greetings all!
So yesterday morning, I cranked up the v to run some errands. When the ICE kicked in it ran rough and shaky for about 4-5 seconds then smoothed out. No check engine lights or anything came on.

It ran fine yesterday on a 40 mile run I made and did fine today on a 120mi round trip to visit my parents. I checked under the hood and noticed the coolant was below the low mark. I added probably about a little less than a quart of coolant to bring it to the full line and made sure to note where it was for future reference. The inverter coolant was also a little below the low line and I will be getting more as soon as I can.

After doing some searching on the subject, I ran across the dreaded comments of HEAD GASKET and got a bit worried. Some posts mentioned cold start temps, but I'm in FL. Others mentioned EGR, so I'm beginning to question that even though mine should have the better rings. On a FB post I followed it was mentioning a fuel system clean and plug replacement (120k for that) so I might look into that.

At this point, I'm looking into the aforementioned things as well as possibly contacting a shop to have the engine checked out. Should I go with these steps, or is there something else I should try as well?

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all have!
Chance

 

Thanks, I will!

 

Thanks! I ran across another post you'd commented on after I put this one in. I'll ring my mechanic in the morning and see if I can get one scheduled. Thanks for the assist!
C