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Engine Rattle when Traction battery low

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by PlumbersCrack, Jun 5, 2015.

  1. PlumbersCrack

    PlumbersCrack Junior Member

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    So I have searched about engine rattle/knock and I have found lots of results for cold starts but I haven't found it for the issue that I am having. I have a 2010 and anytime the battery is real low, around 2 bars and the ICE fires up to charge it, any time I give it a little throttle input, I get heavy valve rattling. It doesn't matter if its cold or hot, it does it as long as the battery is low. I never get this noise when battery is charged up, only when low. I have a link to the video below and you can see once I give it some input, it starts to sound like an old diesel tractor. Prius has close to 200K on the odometer and all my maintenance is up to date. Any help would be appreciated.

    Please turn the speakers up but the noise is right at 5 seconds in or so.

     
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  2. IMkenNY

    IMkenNY Im just being nosy

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    I wonder if that noise could be coming from a worn out drive clutch plate that couples the engine to the transaxle. It has springs and a clutch disk to smooth out power pulses.
     
  3. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    Does the OP have their a/c on high at the same time? There are reports going back a while where if the a/c is on full and the battery is on 2/8 bars, then the car vibrates/drones a little more than usual with some reporting vibration through the brake pedal. I believe the consensus was that it was normal with the engine working hard to power both the a/c (about 4kw) and charge the low battery.
     
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  4. PlumbersCrack

    PlumbersCrack Junior Member

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    I haven't looked into this but I will now. Thanks for the tip.

    I did have the the A/C on before this but it doesn't seem to really matter. I was taking my sister around town a few weeks back with the windows down and same exact thing. 2/8 bars - engine sounds like it is working hard to just charge the battery, throttle input and boom. I am not sure if there is any vibration through the brake pedal though since I am not touching it when accelerating. During the recording of this video, A/C was off. I did have the A/C on about 5 minutes before that but had turned it off. It wasn't a very hot day in downtown LA yesterday.
     
  5. techpet

    techpet Junior Member

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    Did you ever figure this out? I have same issue

    XT1254 ?
     
  6. PlumbersCrack

    PlumbersCrack Junior Member

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    Nope - still does it. Just recently jacked up my car and did complete transmission oil change, radiator coolant / inverter coolant change as well as new spark plugs and oils and still does it. No change in behavior.
     
  7. techpet

    techpet Junior Member

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    I purchased my 2010 used with 90k mi and I realized it doing this after a week. Seller convinced me it was engine knock and thought like you maybe after maintenance it may go away. Now at 130k, all maintenance done, same thing. It seems on a fresh oil change of Mobil 1 it seems to not knock (whatever it is) as much until 2k or more mi. For fear of it being something serious, I now try to just let car sit when it has 2 bars until it finishes charging. I checked for recalls and nothing shows for my VIN have you checked yours?

    XT1254 ?
     
  8. techpet

    techpet Junior Member

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    So quick solution for me was higher octane. I had tried putting in higher octane gas before and was still getting the rattle pinging sound whenever the conditions in this thread were met. Yesterday however, I bought a can of high octane booster and used it to treat the last 3 gallons in my tank. Recreated as many conditions I could in the next 80 miles and could not recreate the pinging/rattling condition. Just prior to this at a full tank, I put in fuel injector cleaner which actually made it ping worse. So bottom line if you are trying to rule out this condition, make sure you get about 100 octane to test the theory. Until I solve this I guess I put 92 octane and bump it with
    octane booster if needed. At least now I know what I am dealing with so off to another taptalk thread for me. Hope this helps someone out there.

    XT1254 ?
     
  9. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    Maybe the pinging is due to increased compression, due in turn to carbon build-up at top of cylinder head.
     
  10. CR94

    CR94 Senior Member

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    ... or maybe a problem in the EGR system?
     
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  11. PlumbersCrack

    PlumbersCrack Junior Member

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    I don't think it is going to be an EGR problem, only because I had an EGR problem and completely cleaned everything out. Used to get error codes for the EGR until I took the entire assembly apart, including the cooler, and cleaned every last bit. My vehicle is still doing it and I pretty much just ignore it, just like my super loud A/C noise.
     
  12. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    ^ Did you clean EGR gunk from intake manifold as well? Was cleaning needed? How many miles when you did that cleaning?

    Seems a design fault, that it it gets so clogged. :confused:
     
  13. PlumbersCrack

    PlumbersCrack Junior Member

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    Oh yeah, everything was absolutely clogged. I removed the entire intake manifold to clean that gunk out, replaced the PCV, removed EGR + the cooler. The cooler was the absolute worst. Could not be seen through and was just full of gunk. I poured water in the top and it never made it out the bottom. Soaked it in degreaser for 2 days and then used my 3000PSI Pressure washer to blast the rest of the stuff out. Cleaned everything up, put it back together and that EGR code never came back. This was done around 170K Miles.
     
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  14. Mendel Leisk

    Mendel Leisk Senior Member

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    I "liked" your post, but I don't like it. Toyota screwed up here.
     
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  15. KerryR

    KerryR New Member

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    Ever figure out what the noise was? I have the same thing.
     
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  16. maurices

    maurices Member

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    I am wondering if there is some type of "knock" sensor attached to the engine. In other vehicles this sensor is monitored by the vehicle computer to send a signal when it detects a knock, which the computer uses to retard the timing dynamically until there is no knock but maximum timing advance.
     
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  17. Former Member 68813

    Former Member 68813 Senior Member

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    Every modern car has a knock sensor. I guess it can malfunction, but that should generate a code.
     
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  18. KerryR

    KerryR New Member

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    My check engine light came on and i took it to Orileys to have it diagnosed and their equipment was faulty and check engine light is off now. Thanks Orileys. I was able to get a recording,
     
  19. Tanderson82

    Tanderson82 New Member

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    My car is doing the exact same thing. If anyone has figured this out, I would really appreciate the advice. It only does it when the battery is on 2 or 3 bars. Also I have noticed that it will not make this noise if the engine hasn't warmed up. Any success stories out there?
     
  20. ATlam

    ATlam Member

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    I just want to say I have this too, only when the engine is charging battery (2 bars) and it's going around 5-10mph and the noise goes away afterward.

    The car run great, just don't know what is causing this noise.
     
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