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Bad day for a DIYer

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by fyc2001, Oct 13, 2015.

  1. fyc2001

    fyc2001 Junior Member

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    Two weeks ago, I was just about to get off the highway when RED triangle showed up twice on the dashboard, I continue to drive until I got home about 2 miles. I popped opened the hood everything was normal to me except the belt was missing. I ordered the OEM belt online and it arrived yesterday (amazon standard shipping, it was delayed due to weather). Last night, I changed the belt myself took about 1 hour, had to do it from top and bottom. Everything was good.
    Then this morning as I was driving on the highway to work, red triangle lighted up again 4 miles from home, I also heard a pop. I thought the belt came off, so I got off the highway and parked it in a shopping center, my wife drove me to work. Tonight, I picked up a belt from advanced auto parts, and drove the prius back home, this time red light didn't show, but CEL came up. I slowly drove the car home on side street while monitoring the temperature (FWT from scangauge). It was around 200, up to 220.
    I popped the hood, to my surprise the belt was ripped in half but still near the large pulley at the bottom. I put on the new belt, this time really tightened the belt to where original belt was on the tensioner. I noticed the water pump pulley is not in line with the two other pulley. (I noticed it too on the first belt change) but didn't think too much of it. then I started the car and pump the accelerator to run the engine a bit. When I turned off the car and check the belt under the hood, the pink coolant was dripping a lot from the water pump pulley.

    my guess is belt too tight? or pump pulley was off center which damaged the waterpump thus causing the leak/drip. Will I do more damage if I fill the coolant and drive it to my "go to" repair shop 5 miles away??

    TIA
     
    #1 fyc2001, Oct 13, 2015
  2. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    It sounds like the root issue is that the engine coolant pump needs to be replaced as its bearing apparently has failed. Certainly all pulleys must be in the same plane.

    You've already risked permanent damage to the engine by driving the car 2x with a malfunctioning cooling system. I suggest you have the car towed for repair if you are not able to, or not interested in replacing the engine coolant pump yourself.

    How to replace engine coolant pump and thermostat | PriusChat
     
    #2 Patrick Wong, Oct 13, 2015
  3. tanglefoot

    tanglefoot Whee!

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    The engine coolant pump isn't too hard to replace yourself. It just takes a while for the air to work its way out of the system afterwards.

    I recently had the coolant pump bearing on the '85 truck fail pretty catastrophically...coolant pulley was able to wobble all over the place. The belt stayed in place but it made a lot of noise and lost a lot of coolant. Shut it down as temp started to rise and luckily, no permanent damage---new coolant pump and it's purring again.
     
    #3 tanglefoot, Oct 14, 2015
  4. fotomoto

    fotomoto Senior Member

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    It really sounds like the water pump is shot and seizing up which is breaking the belts.
     
    #4 fotomoto, Oct 14, 2015
  5. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    do we know year and miles of the Prius?
     
    #5 wjtracy, Oct 14, 2015
  6. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    Its a good idea when replacing the belt to take the belt off and then spin the water pump pulley and the tensioner pulley to see how they feel & sound. Any rumbling or sluggishness and they should be replaced.
    Install the belt and snug it up a little. Put the car in Inspection mode and let it idle for about 15 minutes and make sure everything is ok.

    This will break the belt in as its pretty stiff when brand new. Let the engine cool down and tighten the belt up. I think its 1/2 in deflection with 20 lbs force. If you crank down a brand new stiff belt it will beat the pump bearing up pretty good especially if its a hi mileage car. Op didn't even list the year.
     
    #6 edthefox5, Oct 14, 2015
    MTL_hihy likes this.
  7. fyc2001

    fyc2001 Junior Member

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    II
    update on the car. the car was fixed.
    I decided to DIY on the water pump. spent Wed night 2-3 hours removing the water pump and installing a new carquest waterpump + belt. then Thursday night adding toyota coolant. nothing hard or confusing by just watching the youtube video and priuschat forum, except getting into inspection mode and bleeding the coolant valve.
    it turned out the waterpump was bad. In fact it was making a loud noise for a few months but i thought it is just normal old engine noise since the car has 130,000 miles on it. (it's a 2008 btw). It finally broke my old belt two weeks ago.
    during that one week as the car sat in my driveway the rear hatchback glass scattered into thousands of small pieces, i am not sure what caused it, the weather here NY Long island is not that cold during that period (avg 50-60F at night) maybe it was due to nuts falling from trees ( my roof has many small dents due to the nuts falling). anyways, got that fixed yesterday for $250 (OEM toyota glass from a wreck).
    i asked the repair how much to change belt and waterpump on the prius, he said it shouldn't need to be changed at my mileage. so a premature failure.

    thanks for all your help. :>
     

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    #7 fyc2001, Oct 18, 2015
    Andyprius1 and Mendel Leisk like this.
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