Hey y'all I hit a hitch that fell out of a truck and broke a piece of a coolant line leading into the catalytic converter. I need to know if I could still run my car as a regular car or if its dangerous to do so. I'll post pics of the damage with this. Part number 17482
It looks like a very expensive repair, unless you can find an ace welder at an independent shop. I think any dealership would automatically replace both broken parts with new.
that is the circulator line for your engine coolant. i suspect your coolant level is down and your engine will overheat. did you get his license? have you contacted your insurance co?
As @bisco and @CR84 kindly noted, the broken pipe is part of the engine cooling system. If an engine is run for more than a brief time without effective cooling, it will be damaged beyond repair. Have you checked the engine coolant level? See pages 418, 425, and 430–432 in the Owner’s Manual (PDF) for precautions and the location of the reservoir. If the coolant is gone, or the level is very low, I’d be concerned about the engine, unless it was stopped right after the incident and hasn’t run since. Even if the engine is OK, you need to repair the damaged pipe or replace the assembly; more on that below. If that’s not feasible, I imagine you could work around the problem by completely isolating the coolant pipes to and from the catalytic converter. There would still be engine cooling, but the exhaust heat recirculation system wouldn’t work, so the engine wouldn’t be helped to warm up by waste heat from the catalytic converter. Fuel economy would suffer, and the car might store diagnostic trouble codes that would make it fail an emissions inspection. I don’t recommend this, and there are no published procedures for it. (I don’t think Toyota has written a Battle Damage Assessment & Repair book for their cars!) That’s a part name code (PNC); the actual part number is shown in the parts list for catalog Figure 17-02, Exhaust Pipe, from which the illustration in your photo is taken. It’s also the wrong part: PNC 17482, part number 17482-47010, is just a bolt, with a $4.11 list price. Instead, you probably need either a welder to make a repair, as @Pluggo kindly suggested, or a front exhaust pipe assembly, PNC 17410, part number 17410-37300. The list price for a new one is $1,832.27; it’s so expensive because the assembly includes the catalytic converter, with platinum inside.
As mentioned, it looks like a coolant line to the Exhaust Heat Recirculation system. This assists in warming up the engine coolant under certain conditions. Get it repaired, pronto! Do not run the car with low/no coolant.
I'm looking into replacing a stolen converter on my 2010, and must admit I'm somewhat thrown off by the documentation/illustrations. I understand there are two variants of the front exhaust pipe assembly (with and without exhaust heat recirculation system), and it seems to me 17410-37300 is with EHR and 17410-37160 is without. Is this correct? The diagram for 17410-37300 from Toyota does not look like it would lead from the exhaust manifold to the muffler. Neither does the render/photograph from Magnaflow's equivalent aftermarket offering, but it also doesn't look anything like Toyota's diagram either. Toyota's diagram (2010 Toyota Prius Hatchback Pipe assembly, exhaust, front. Engine - 1741037300 - Genuine Toyota Part): Magnaflow's render (MagnaFlow Toyota Prius OEM Grade Federal / EPA Compliant Direct-Fit Catalytic Converter): What I expected a direct fit replacement to resemble (from the repair manual): Am I mistaken about the part numbers, or are the illustrations misleading?
Yes, that’s correct, for the U.S. market. The parts.toyota.com website is maintained by a third party (SimplePart), and regrettably, some of their illustrations of individual parts are incorrect. The overview image for Figure 17-02, Exhaust Pipe, comes from Toyota’s official Electronic Parts Catalog. It shows the version with exhaust heat recirculation on the left, and the version “W/O(HEAT RECYCLE)” on the right.