well gentleman thanks all for the help but it ends up not being the input seal. It is way worst than that, On the damper (type of clutch looking thing), one of the spring broke and got stuck between the disk and the transmission case, it made a hole in the transmission case... I decided to have Toyota do it and now i need a new damper they want to sell me for 1000 and a new casing for 1400$ (canadian prices are much higher than in the US, like double) Damn it sucks, none of the parts in stock and the taxi is stuck not making money. If i get a chance i'll go grab some pictures of this.
You could probably plug/fix the casing as long as it isn't too bad. I would still call Toyota. Especially now, that seems like a defect for such low miles.
yes it is. The parts guy at the dealership was able to find a used transmission and damper for 1400$ this is going to be the solution, plus, thye will get it in 24 hours. I am losing about 1000$ every week the car is not rolling, not talking about my drivers who don't make any money during this time. if i decide to wait for Toyota Canada, i am going to lose more in the end with the wait than if they do the job quickly.
Could be time to consider in house hybrid taxi service like we do here in San Francisco. Taking a taxi to the dealer for service doesn't make much sense.
what do you mean, like having our own repair shop? Or using a specialized shop? We don't have those around here, small town and we only have 5 prius and 2 camry hybrid out of our fleet. We only own 9 taxis. I sually do the work myself but i have a "real job" also so i had no time to take the tranny out. And all the independant shops are afraid to play around the hybrid system so dealer was pretty much our only hope.
Why don't you just TIG weld the case and be done with it. As long as it just a hole, this would be the better option rather than spending all that money for a new housing.
guys here are the pics, see the missing spring in the damper, it got stuck between the damper and the transmission. You can see the carnage it made on the housing, there would be a lot of work to be done to repair that thing. That circle thing is not there usually. The car is going to be ready tonight with the used tranny we bought.
Sure did wreak havoc. That damper spring breaking like that sure is a freakish thing. I would guess that due to the weight you have to carry around in taxi service. I don't think the spring can coil bind because of the stoppers but they probably get pretty compressed with the loads you carry. Anyway, good luck with the used transmission. That was probably your best bet and the fastest way to get it back in service.
load? this car has been a taxi for only 3 months so i doubt this is it plus, in my small city, we never have more than one or two people in there at the same time. It's not like we are pulling a trailer or moving sand and stone around. Pretty sure we are the only one to whom it happenned but i sure hope it won't happen again on any of our cars. I will try to take the cover off and have it fixed by a good welder, maybe i will be able to save the tranny and have it in case something else goes wrong with one of our cars.
A person would think a Toyota drivetrain engineer would be very interested in having this tranny in their hands to figure out why it came apart. But how does someone contact the right people at Toyota? Mike
I don't think this makes mention of transaxle-only removal, but fwiw, a section from the Repair Manual:
I can't help but think that rattling, manifold-condensate induced cold starts could have banged this spring to bits. If this assembly doesn't make that noise, what else could?
there is a how to in this forum for the 2nd gen, this is how my dealer did it, engine stayed in place, just slightly tilted and tranny could come out. It only took them 4 hours to get it out and it was their first time doing such a job on a prius.
I would have tendancy to agree with you on that. I had an event happen to me that sounded like the crankshaft was going to blow right out of the engine block. In retrospect I think the majority of that noise was the dampener disc.
well just a follow up, i was able to get the cover repaired, here are the pics. I will reinstall the cover and we'll have a functionnal tranny again. By the way, i can't seem to find the part number for that bearing in the second pic, if anyone can help me with that, that would be appreciated. The two exploded view for the transmission are so complicated and it seems like a lot of the parts can't be bought by themselves