What Did You Do To Gen4 Prius Today

First thing I does on mine when I got it too

 

Do you use battery minders on any of your 12V vehicle batteries? I have been doing that for years...and the original 12V batteries in our 1012 Sonata and 2013 Elantra still test as healthy. I was skeptical of the battery minders claim to make batteries "last longer"...but they sure do appear to be doing the job in our case. I also use the battery minder on the 1012 Prius v wagon...but the 12V in there is newer.

 

On Thursday I had some glasses tinted: 95% on the rear hatch and 80% on the rear windows (unfortunately here in Belgium it's illegal to tint front windows...)

 

I replaced our charcoal cabin filters....they only last for a year and my Prius is starting to smell bad.

I buy two for $18 from Amazon, Fun Driving FD157.

I noticed a confusing flaw with Toyota...when you remove the cover door for the filter, it has an arrow pointing UP. But that's for the filter housing, NOT the airflow direction. (Air flows DOWN from the hood.)

I wonder how many cars have their filter installed upside down?

 

I do, too. I also wonder how much difference it really makes.

 

The filter on my ‘22 has an arrow pointing up with the word UP right next to it. Hopefully it helps.

 

So I took my wife out to dinner in my car and, since it was a hot day, had the A/C blasting...but when it went on HIGH we had a new whistling sound I'd never heard coming from the passenger side. We adjusted the vents but didn't matter...still had a strange whistle.
When we got home, I inspected the carbon cab filter I just replace.....yep, the left side of the little plastic cover wasn't pushed inside of the little tabs. So once it was replaced, no more whistle sounds.
Funny how such a little thing can effect things.

 

There was some scratches on the door frame so I added this door entry guard.

 

ALMOST got rid of my 2021 AWD Prius. I have a 2014 Tundra and Prius as my cars. (Wife has a 2017 Prius) I've been considering trading in the Tundra for a 2023 Tacoma and also selling my Prius so I just have one car...using the Tacoma instead of the Prius as my commuter car.
But the only Tacoma I'd get is the orange TRD Pro which #1) is super hard to get and #2 it's priced in mid 40's....ouch.
So we're just going to stay with what we have and rethink it in a few years when the next Gen Tacoma comes out and see how they are holding up and MPGs and towing capacities, etc. I really hope Toyota has the current Tacoma A/C compressor and A/C aux. cooling problems fixed in the next gen and, also, don't copy placing that turbo wastegate controller in location that required removing the engine in order to replace it.

 

I'm the same way...We sometimes really want another vehicle, possibly a Gen4 Prius, but we don't need one, so we are sticking with what we have.

• The 2012 Prius C went to our daughter who now lives in North Carolina.
• The 2012 Prius V has issues...but I'm still using it as an around town car.
• The 2012 Sonata Limited is in mint condition with only 55K on it, so not worth getting rid of.
• The 2013 Elantra GT hatchback is in mint condition with only 45K on it, so not worth getting rid of either.

Plus, I want to possibly retire early in a year or two ( or until they lay me off )...so conserving funds.

 

Do you still have the original engine for your Sonata and Elantra? They are included of the class action against Hyundai/Kia I believe (depending on the engine). My son's 2012 Kia Optima engine broke down last June. Kia dealership replaced it free of charge. They didn't want to lend him a loaner so we showed them the class action settlement where a loaner had to be provided. He got a renter from Enterprise free of charge. His repair which was supposed to take a month turned out to be a week and a half. I wonder why lol.

I had a Hyundai Tucson 2013 that had a broken engine in 2021 and unfortunately, it wasn't included in that class action (started with the 2014 model for the Tucson). A used engine was the price of what the vehicle was worth so I scrapped it and bought my Model 3.

This was the back of the dealership looked like back in 2021. So many broken engine laying around.



Now there are class actions forming over the Ionic5/6 EV6 and GV6 charge port trouble.

Hyundai/Kia are way down the list of manufacturers I'm going with for my next vehicle.

 

Yes..I'm well aware of the engine troubles with the Theta II engine in the Sonata. The Elantra GT doesn't have that engine.

The ironic thing is that so far, the Sonata and Elantra GT have had absolutely no problems whatsoever so far. However, I know that the engine in the Sonata may be problematic at some point. At least Hyundai was forced to give lifetime warranties on vehicles with the Theta II engine.

In fact, the Hyundais have been much more reliable than the Gen3 Prius vehicles we have had. Frankly, I'm pretty disappointed with the engine issues we have dealt with our Gen3 Priuses. Our 2010 had oil consumption issues. Our 2012 Prius V has head gasket issues. So go figure...

 

Either you're lucky or I was bad lucky (or a combination of both lol) because beside the engine, this is what broke on that car since the warranty expired, until the engine broke down:

The AWD stopped working. No error anywhere, just didn't engage anymore.

The front wiper assembly had to be replaced because the wiper shafts that spin in the assembly seized.

The rear driver window buttons didn't work anymore going up.

The passenger side vanity light button in the door became inconsistent. Light would flash in the car because of it. A few months later, the driver side button did the same thing.

The passenger side speaker in the door started to rattle.

Beside the AWD and wiper, it was mainly nuisance but it was my first vehicle in over 30 years with so msny issues and my first Korean car that it will be a while before I look at another one again.

 

Aw you're scaring me about the Hyundai's! My youngest daughter is now expecting her 4th so traded in her wonderful 2017 Mazda for a 2021 Palisade with 35,000 miles. LOTS of electronics on that thing and I'm not a fan of that old-school engine (no hydraulic lifters) and carbon build-up (Direct Injection only). So i told her to only refuel at our gas station with Top Fuel gasoline and I'll be doing her oil changes every 3,000 miles. So when her 10-year power-train is up I'll advise her to trade it in for something like a Toyota Sienna Hybrid van.

 

Make sure her Palisade comes with an engine immobilizer, otherwise she might get trouble to get it insured. One more **** up by Hyundai/Kia.

Kia, Hyundai Offer Owners Security Kits, Locks After Targeted Car Thefts - Forbes Wheels

 

Weird...like I said, both of our Hyundais have had ZERO issues whatsoever. In fact, they haven't even been into the dealer for service at all other than a recall a few years ago. I do nearly all of my own service on all of our vehicles. BTW - I do use Techron pretty frequently to help with the carbon buildup. And I do use "top fuel" gasoline.

Like I said, for Toyota's supposed reliability, they have been the most problematic vehicles we have ever had. The Gen3 engines have not been kind to Toyota's reputation, that's for sure. Apparently Gen4's are also starting to show head gasket issues as well...sigh.

 

I guess you can literally say YMMV here as I have a completely different experience with Hyundai/Kia.

 

I'm not doubting you one bit.

My main point was to illustrate that while everyone takes "Toyota quality" as gospel, Toyota has had some big issues. Frankly, I'm pretty disappointed to see that some are starting to have head gasket issues with their Gen4's.

 

Even though my wife's 2017 Prius only had 2,000 miles since the last oil change, it was at the 6-month point so I went ahead and changed it yesterday.
Everything was going great but when opening and inserting a quart of 0W-20 into the funnel, my gloved hands were a little slippery and the bottle slipped...so I instinctively squeezed it...yep, stupid thing shot quite a bit of new oil up onto the windshield and into the plastic cowl grill.
I wiped off as much as I could get but, man, it looked like some had already gone into the plastic cowl in front of the passenger side.
I finished with the oil change and then took out the carbin filter and inspected all inside there...nothing. So that was good.
I removed the wipers so I could lift up on the cowl and got as much oil out of there as I could. I looked under the car and right behind the front/right tire I was fresh oil dripping down. I doubted dumping a bunch of water down the cowl would do much so I parked her car out in the sun for a few hours to get as much oil as I could to drain out, which it did. I couldn't smell any oil when using the A/C so that's good.
Maybe I'll get some degreaser like Dawn detergent and run a bit of it through that thing.

 

Added this dashcam to my 2017 Prius Prime.

Fitcamx Dash Cam Suitable for Toyota Prius LE Limited XLE Hatchback Prime 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018, 4K OEM Style Camera for Cars, UHD Video WiFi, Loop Recording G-Sensor, Easy to Install, 64GB Card https://a.co/d/fw1dnGv

It looks like OEM and the 4K (3840 x 2160 pixel) looks great.