Hello all. This is my first post here. I did some searching and found limited results, which is inline with my thoughts. I do not own a prius, but my mother does. It is a 2008 and does have quite a few highway miles on it. It is not babied, but general maint is kept up with. Today i got a call informing me that it had broken down and she was on the side of the road picking up what she believed to be parts she saw coming out of the rear (i've been there before but we will get back to that). She realized this likely meant a catastrophic failure, but also felt that she had "possibly hit something". That brings me here. Do these things really put rods through the blocks? I’ve blown blocks out of the back of cars, but it was in high-horsepower, forced induction, V8s. I realize that if ignored long enough anything can explode, but I have a hard time believing they are violent enough to be blowing through bottom ends on the interstate without some serious warning noise from a spun bearing or something first. I have not seen the car yet but am told there’s a hand sized hole in the block. Has anyone seen this, or could there be something behind the possibility that she hit something? I will be happy to follow-up once I get a look at it and some pics, but was hoping for some feedback from the prius crowd first. I expected the battery to be fault of this car, not throwing rods like a top fueler.
welcome! i recall reading another post with pics of hole in side of engine. i think they ran low on oil, but not sure.
so in your experience it is by no means a common occurrence? Like i said, if you run something without oil low enough it will pop; but she keeps up with basic maintenance and would have mentioned noise like a spun rod. Any links to similar threads would be appreciated. I will be happy to contribute the final synopsis and pics to the forum once i get the details.
yes, extremely rare. even on cars with 2,3,400,000 miles. if you search 'rod' (titles only, all forums) there are two hits. one lost oil, the other is incomplete. one was 2004 in 2013, and the other was a 2007 in 2014.
Odometer reading? Was your mother in the habit of periodically checking the engine oil level, and if so did the engine consume much oil between oil changes? As previously stated, it appears the few incidences when catastrophic engine damage was reported, were attributed to out of oil situations.
I hate to disagree with you Bisco but we have seen this many many times. Its usually cyl #3 for some reason also. There's a few youtubes about it also. Somewhere in its life the car ran so low on oil the check engine light came on. Once that happens to a G2 motor its almost always develops a knock. Sometimes the knock is only heard under load and is confused with ping. If you keep driving the knock becomes smoke and bang. It seems to happen the most to G2's that have spent there life getting the oil changed at the dealer and the owner has not had any personal interaction with under the hood. Why should they its dealer maintained. Woo Hoo!! its bullet proof. lol...The dealer oil change dude never goes to the owner and says btw, your 2 quarts low when you rolled in...better watch it. G2's eat oil. So the owner has no idea the car spends most of its adult life with low oil. The lower end is splash lubricated like most cars. No oil to full line no splash. Any G2 Prius needs to have its oil kept at the full line always and the engine oil should be checked once a week before you start the car. Having the car's oil dealer serviced is a death sentence to a G2. If you just throw them the keys they will use the most god awful crap vat oil on the planet.
Thanks for the info ED. it would have been regularly maintained with high quality oil, but admittedly she would not have been checking oil very often between those times. Didn’t realize these little guys ate up oil like that or she would have been taught to take a look. Live and learn. I can have more details tomorrow. Any easy way to diagnose which cylinder failed to help with your #3 observation?
fwiw (not much, i know) my daughters '08 w/ 100k doesn't lose any visible oil between 5k changes. i realize it's only one sample, and she drives like me, an old lady.
Well.... its not epidemic but I can recall maybe 10 in the last 5 years. Still the toughest little motor ever.
Welcome Zlowe. Moms car has probably been knocking for a while and she never mentioned it. That seems to always preclude the rod thru the block. It actually blows a hole in the side of the motor. Check out youtube there's one on there.
Yes it happen to me in that last blizzard we had while I was traveling to Florida blew out the passenger one. 2008 Prius. It totaled the car 114k miles. Spun out on ice and wacked the suspension front and back lost a pair of my rims book racing super Eco. I have the other 2. 16 inch
Scroll through this blog post until the last 3 pictures. From Car to No Car - Noah HoffmanNoah Hoffman
funny how the mechanic accused him of not maintaing the car, then snookered it from him for a hundred bucks. is that any way to treat potential olympic athlete?
That picture looks identical to the ones that were posted back n the day. Toughest little motor but will not tolerate being beat on with no oil. Previous owner rode it hard and hung it up wet.
