Chances are when mine tried to compress the coolant it bent the rod, look online for Prius bent rod, they bend right bellow the piston, then it’s a matter of time befoee it snaps under load, mine failed at 4300-4500 RPM on a hill climb.
The thing with this water pump also, the one I have is a replacement, and it already shut off on me 1 time, ran fine for 5 miles, then when I got on the freeway if I did not have the Ultragauge alarm I would have not known. Any gauge with an audible high temperature alarm will save you from engine overheating failure.
To be honest I haven't had any problems with the light duty water pump in the Prius The Prius doesn't make that much heat It seems like so and with its wild cooling system design my god even in the summertime running the air conditioner unless I'm out for a long time than the car barely heats . Compared to same engines Corolla sitting across from Prii.
Yes I removed my bent rod and messed up piston right here in the yard The rest of the assembly was whistle clean and all the bearings were great too bad the engine was trashed but in typical Toyota all the internals look great at 250 or 60K. A lot of these water pumps some of them may be fakes or they're impellers may be not made by Toyota or not have passed the quality control or whatever usually when these pumps stop it's because the plastic is coming off the impeller and it's sticking in its bore