Today my Prius surprised me. I drove it out of the garage and it had 2 bars charge. After a few secs, as usual, it fired the ICE. Ambient temp was 21C/70F. The ICE stopped after only 1 min as per 1-min fuel consumption screen. Maybe it was a bit longer (more than 1 but surely less than 2) - it never warmed up that fast after a full night cooling off.
View 5 RepliesI stuck my phone down by the electric motor and recorded this while the car was running:
My '06 has been making this odd noise coming from the front of the vehicle. It's coming from somewhere under the hood on the right side (the driver's side), and I think it's under or next to the electric motor.
It happens when warmed up, and only when the vehicle is turned on. It doesn't seem to be related to the ICE, because the noise happens regardless if the ICE is running or not. In fact it happens rarely, so when I heard it I jumped out and tried to locate it (and recorded it with my phone).
This week I noticed a sound that sounds low that increases then the vehicle goes faster and decreases when it slows down. It is not wheel bearing noise. Took a doctors type scope and put it on the pulleys listening for the bearing noise in each pulley and found my alternator pulley making more noise than usual, My car needs new accessory belts so I ordered 3 new belts and will be replacing them soon. I am hoping the noise is from worn belts and not the alternator. If it is the alternator its going to cost me 250 bucks for a rebuilt one. I'm not sure if I can tear the alternator apart and replace the part bearing part. Have to look into this. Is this normal for a car with 161 thousand klm for accessory belt bearings on items to start to go bad? I sure hope the water pump and power steering and ac compressor and ac tensioner last. These all have bearings in them as well.
View 10 RepliesI have a 2003 GMC Envoy I6 4.2L. When driving above 50 after vehicle has warmed up it will drop rpm's by 300-500 and they go back up. This happens for several minutes at a time. It did it for over 20 minutes last night while driving home. I thoroughly cleaned the throttle body this morning (removed to clean) because in my researching for the solution it seemed that was the answer. Also left battery disconnected the entire time to allow computer to reset itself for clean TB. Took it for test drive and after about 10 minutes of driving it started doing the same thing. Took it to autozone to see if maybe they could pull a code even though there is no SEL on at the moment, but nothing came up. I am dreading if it's in drivetrain, i have only had the vehicle for about a week and a half. Bought it used from a private seller and it drove home fine the day i bought it and a couple days after, but now it's gotten worse than when it first started.
View 5 RepliesI have an 07 Prius with 90Kmi (bought new) which now loses power while climbing sections of mtn passes. Battery meter shows 1 purple bar and cannot go faster than 50mph. No warning lights or fault codes. Never an issue before & intermittently happens around town. 4 dealer visits and extended tests with TMC field techs have allowed them to duplicate the problem at least twice. Interestingly Toyota doesn't know what or how to fix this.
View 19 RepliesExperiencing excess wind noise at 60 mph and faster? You would think a vehicle that has a low drag coefficient would not have wind noise issues.
View 9 RepliesOur city has installed a number of auto-radar "you are traveling ___ mph" stations in the last couple years. While not the most accurate of devices, so far they seem to be reading me slower than my C speedometer says. Any other C drivers noticed this? I have the standard 15" steel wheels on my Two.
View 12 RepliesI've read several posts that suggest the EV mode is mostly useless. I disagree. I've noticed that it's useful in gaining speed faster without the ICE, when taking off from a stop. Especially if I'm in traffic and I don't want to annoy drivers behind me.
I've noticed that conditions have to be met in order to do this, such as engine warmed up etc. but I find it very useful, and I am seeing improved MPG when doing this. I've had my 2013 PRius v Two for almost a month now.
Have 1000 miles left on the 150K CA battery on my 2009.
First, I can no longer enter EV mode with the ev mode. It always says cannot change into ev mode right now. In the past, that only occurred during the warm up cycles. Now it always says that regardless except if I try when first powering on before the engine starts. In that case, when it was working, it would switch over and the MFD would change to show the battery. Now nothing and the engine always starts.
Also, the battery charges and discharges much faster than it used to. I can barely get a 1/4 in stealth (feathering the throttle to keep the ICE from kicking on) without it going from 8 bars down to 2.
My 2005 Prius with 170k miles started making a whining noise after the car is warmed up. It is noticeable from about 30 mph, but mostly at higher speeds. When you take your foot off the accelerator the whining stops. It has gotten a bit louder over the past several weeks. I took it to a Toyota dealership and they want to replace the transmission because they believe it is a failure of the transmission's 2nd stage.
View 3 RepliesToday, it is around 25 degrees F here, and I drove my prius C for 5 minutes or so before turning on the heater. To my surprise, the heater had already "warmed up" and the air coming from the vents was warm. Does the electric heater element warm up when it is cold outside even when the heater isn't turned on? Don't know if it matters, but I was in Eco mode at the time.
View 9 RepliesTemperatures have dropped, and I am getting an icon that looks like a tent with a small snowflake in it - manual says "low temperature." My question is - what should I do? The icon persists after the car is warmed up.
View 18 RepliesHave a heavy steering feel on their 2010's with the 215 45/17 tires? It seems much heavier than previous Prius's and also have noticed that mine when it is really cold the steering wheel gets a little twitchy until it is fully warmed up.
View 12 RepliesI know this issue has been posted and discussed multiple times on early Gen 3 Prius'. That said, I don't see much on it regarding the Prius v ( lowercase v for the Prius v wagon, not an uppercase ). There is also of course a TSB for earlier Prius' that had the issue.
I can readily replicate the issue in that almost every time I 'think' it may happen the next time I start the vehicle, it does in fact do so.
If I move the vehicle from the garage to the driveway or around in the driveway to clear snow, the ICE fires for a few seconds then I shut it off as the car is where I need it. Upon the next ICE start, there is a horrible knocking under the hood somewhere. Different from the previous messages and the TSB itself is that I never get an error code or MIL.
I'm to the point where if I move the car, I let it warm up completely. I figure I'm better off wasting fuel than subjecting my Prius to whatever horrible thing is happening under the hood if I don't.
We use the EV mode when going home for last quarter mile because its mostly downhill so for fun have the electric motor tow us home. What is "quirky" about this mode is sometimes EV won't engage even if big battery is full, gas engine is warmed up.
We know that going faster than 25mph cancels the EV and that short trips prevent EV from engaging. Other times EV just cancel citing excessive speed when we are going 10-15mph. So this is no problem but wondered what the parameters are for EV engaging and dis-engaging.
Yeah so on the way to the UCLA game last night, after the car warmed up, I started hearing a whoop sound coming from the back I thing. This is the second time I heard it doing this in the month I've owned it. It happened under some acceleration and sounded a bit like the beginning of a police siren. Not every time though.
View 3 RepliesI have a 2011 Prius with Sunroof and my car has become infested with ants. I keep it clean, I do not have food all over, etc. I think they are living in the front left panel above/around the wheel.
Are they attracted to some location or component? What do I do to get rid of them?
I am considering taking to dealer so they can take the friggin thing apart because I can't handle SWARMS of ants all over the outside and inside of my car.
this is my third hybrid (Camry hybrid and RX 400).
I have a '11 Prius IV with solar panel and remote AC button on my fob. Not much good information on this in the manual. I'd like to use the remote AC button (assuming a charged battery) to begin the interior warmup and defrost process on cold mornings.
However, it seems that when I hold the remote button on the fob as instructed in the guide, it turns everything on in the car for a brief moment (5 seconds or less) as opposed to a full 3 minutes as the manual describes. Again, the battery is at least 3/4 to a full charge and the process begins when I hold down remote start, but it just turns everything of after a brief period.
We have a 2008 Prius with 11,000 miles ,which is new to us for about 2 months now.
My wife and I both have noticed a "shudder of the car - when the motor shuts down" at a stop light or whenever needed. It seems a little bit more noticeable than in the previous two months of driving it.
I've burned two CD-Rs with MP3s via the latest iTunes (10.7). When I put the CDs either in the 6-CD Changer OR the single player, the Prius acts like it doesn't recognize them. I can get it to "play" "track 1," but no sound comes out, and when I press skip, it just moves "track 1" to "0:00" and starts again.
When I look at the MP3 CD on my computer, I see that iTunes put everything into folders:
01 Artist -- > 01 Album --> file.mp3
So it looks like everything copied correctly.
What am I missing?
Are the folders screwing the Prius up?
I just bought a 2010 Prius II and was wondering what size wheels will fit on it. What is the minimum offset I can go with a 17x8 without having the tire scrape the fender when I turn the wheel all the way to make u-turns?
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