I'm not sure what the noise is, but it sounds expensive Backed out of parking spot, started making an awful clunky grindy noise. Put in drive and more noise but no go. Put in neutral, still grinding but stopped after a minute. Pushed back into spot, waiting for AAA. Interesting it would not go into park from N until the grinding stopped. No lights on dash interestingly, except the snakes chasing your car (traction?) light flashes intermittently while it's grinding. Any thoughts appreciated! Rob
Seems to grind as long as engine is running. Won't go to park from neutral directly, have go to drive then park.
Tow truck driver found two pieces of some sort of greasy metal ring on the ground, said they looked like part of the axle halfshaft. After that I noticed there was grease spattered around inside the right front wheel well.
If it is a problem outside of the transaxle, that would be the best case scenario. Could be that your CV bombed.
The noise in neutral confuses me. Maybe the part just continued to turn for a while until stopped by friction.
Yup, sounds like a CV joint. They are not too bad. Easy to get to, easy to replace. I wonder if it's a case of a failed boot not noticed. I inspect Pearl's at every oil change. If it was in an accident (front end) the CV probably got "tweaked". Let's hope that didn't translate to the HSD housing by the half shaft.
been reading this forum for several years - first post. I'm having this same issue with my 2004 (220k miles!) - put the car in drive or reverse, doesn't move, grinding noise from under the hood. Happened for the first time today in MA on a very hot day. No, I have never changed the transmission fluid in the three years I've owned it and don't know anything about its maintenance history from the previous owner. I know this is a very old thread but thought somebody else might be able to point me in the right direction. I can try to pull the codes I just need to buy a code reader for the Prius.
There have been a few trans chain failures in the last 13 years on this site very few but a few. It will make an ungodly thrashing sounding noise I would imagine. Did it launch a code on the dash maybe the red triangle of death? No codes on the dash no codes launched. This will probably not throw a code as its mechanical. A few differential failures also. Both of these are from poor fluid maintenance or just having the snot beat out of them. Also a few clutch pucks too there's a little spring loaded plate that connects the trans to the engine. Its to smooth out impulse noise between the engine/trans connection. They break. A few have failed but again very few. Trans damage/failure sometimes happens when you get a trans fluid leak. if you park in the same place very day good thing to take a look at the spots it leaves on the ground. Easy way to exonerate the trans is to dump the trans fluid. Before that open the fill hole on the side of the trans and stick you finger in the hole the fluid should be right at the hole. if not check the sides of the differential where the inner cv joints enter the trans is there fluid leaking out of that area? Thats kinda common to with bad cv joints. Pull the trans fluid If its got chunks of metal stuck to the magnet bolt there you go.
This car has had the red triangle since I bought it due to an issue with the headlight level adjustment that I haven't bothered to fix - because of this I don't know if another error has popped up. However I did jack up the car and could immediately see a problem - fluid leaking from the CV boot on the passenger side tire. Two of the bearings actually fell right out when I removed the boot! The CV joint was misaligned so was now rubbing against the chassis and that's what was causing the noise. So obviously need to get the CV joint replaced. I still don't understand why the tires weren't spinning, at least the driver side tire that is undamaged. Would the traction control system prevent power from going to the wheels if it detects the wheels aren't spinning? I did see the traction control front panel indicator light up. I disabled traction control, still no power to the wheels. I'm getting this towed to the mechanic, I just hope the CV is the only issue and there isn't something larger wrong with the transmission - like I said, poor history of maintenance in this area.
yep. The bad thing is since the cv joint is so jacked up it tends to wobble and beat up the differential....so I would still have the mechanic pull the trans fluid its cheap and it needs it. Here's the very bad news if you have a red triangle that the Red Triangle of Death RTOD its a fatal code the headlight adj will not throw that. Its launching the traction control as you surmised. But is imperative you pull all the codes it has thrown by using a hybrid capable code reader. If you come back and say it has no codes your not using a HCCR.
So it took about three hours but I got the error codes (attached here). I'm not seeing anything major, just P0456 and P0556 - nothing related to transmission or battery. So I think that is good news. How sure are you that the RTOD will not illuminate because of the headlight leveler assembly issue? There is also an icon on my LCD screen indicating the assembly is broken, and I was told by the previous owner that's also why the RTOD is lit (for whatever that is worth).
When I click the snowflake a new window opens with a table that is blank (has no information in it). The title is "P0456 Evaporative Emission Control System Leak Detected (very small leak)
Usually the table will have more information that points toward the cause. I'd try and reconnect the Prius and tech-stream and see what you can get. If there is a snowflake, there is more information to help determine the next steps.
I couldn't think of a less intuitive symbol of "click here for more information" than a snowflake! Curious why that's the icon. Anyways I did as you suggested and now I see the additional information, I have attached the detailed logs, I'm not really sure what I'm looking for. On this new scan, C2318 also popped up, but I believe this is just because my auxiliary battery voltage was low - a few minutes later, my car died, and its currently on the charger... Thank you for the help it's really appreciated.
The reason for the snowflake choice is the software is collecting and sharing "freeze frame" data. If you look at the top of your screen shots, you'll see what it is sharing as time lapse. I'm not the most adept at interpreting techstream, but see if there are any differences amongst the time lapse. Another option is to pull the 12v lead for a bit and see what resets and returns. Always an option to see what remains.
Just to close on this, the issue was just the CV joint. Replaced and back on the road! Thanks everybody for the help.
