2004 prius ICE metallic rattle, opinions?

great, added it to my list. Thanks John, and no worries about a few bucks (oh and by bucks I mean euros, since I'm living in the Netherlands), the cost-benefit ratio is far greater than the not spending situation

Like I said, I'd rather spend a bit now, get it in tip-top shape, rather than having to fork over a mint later on with a seized engine, transmission or whathaveyou. Plus, these things I chalked up to my total cost of ownership for every vehicle I've owned so far, and even so, with these incumbent costs, the Prius still comes out ahead of my former alfa and audi.

cheers,
//V

 

update:
just came back from service, about 680 bucks lighter, but with NEW:
- ICE water pump, belt and a couple of pulleys and some long life coolant
- inverter pump as part of the recall
- long life sparkplugs (apparently ex owner put some of the crappiest summer plugs that are supposed to be changed every 15-20k km tops, and hadn't changed them in the last 68k km); the coil(s) needed no change apparently;
- rear rotors/disks and brake pads (fully worn out and warped, sometimes would yield some cyclical abrasive noise when pulling away from parking for a short while, only from cold after having the spacecraft parked and 'hand' brake used in cold humid nights); also made sure that the 'hand' brake does disengage when retracted;
- balanced wheels, but tires are fairly new, so there was no need to rotate them just yet;
- apparently a smaller 12 volt auxiliary battery, the old one was 8 years old, but worked fine (they said if I have trouble with this one in the next few months, I can always come back to them and swap my old one back in, just in case, they're keeping them stored for a while)
- air filter; the ex owner had forcefully fitted the wrong filter in there, didn't filter for sh!t as far as I understood, good thing it wasn't used much with that crap on
- steering shaft something or other replaced as part of the recall
- cabin air filter replaced

It all took about 4 hours of labor and some change, so the cost was not bad at all, considering ..

Things that did not need to be changed/replenished:
- engine oil and filter were almost new, didn't need changing (determined via visual inspection with both cold and warm engine, by the mechanic guy)
- transaxle oil has been changed apparently, because it was also new-ish, according to the same guy, can't have more than 10k km rolled with it, is what they said)
- there were no error codes apparently, although I find that hard to believe, but their 'laptop' showed nothing, and nor does my OBD2 Torque app, but then again I still don't trust these things, since I write software for a living =)
- hybrid battery check was not performed with any measuring tools and whatnot, but just as part of a short spirited drive with the mechanic, and for the first time today on the way back I've seen the battery icon on the MFD show the green fill color on those tiny horizontal fill bars; their assessment: "it seems ok, but best of luck with it, son! not to worry though, we've seen 350000 km priuses still running fine on the original battery".. so I don't know, I guess that's the only real worry that it's going to fail at any moment, in my mind..

I could not reproduce the faint and occasional popping sound when turning the wheels for the life of me, because I suspected one front end planetary axle joint going bad, but heck, no dice :|

Again I wanted to express thanks to you guys here on PriusChat, you've been very helpful with your advice and accurate with your diagnostic. I'm very grateful for everything

Now onto cool mods like parking sensors and rear view camera; so exciting that I have a bunch of new info to read and digest

cheers again,
//V

 

oh ok, I was under the (wrong) impression that my old OBD2 bluetooth was capable of the same (I'm talking this one Bluetooth OBDII OBD2 Diagnostic Scanner, Scan tool check Engine Light CAR CODE READER for ELM327: Amazon.co.uk: Car & Motorbike)

And so far I had used an old Android phone with an app called Torque, which is not half bad either, but ok, I'll give the cable you mentioned a look.

Thanks for that, John

 

whoa, nice

so is this what you guys mean?

 

great, will order today ^^

amazon uk doesn't love me though(We're sorry. This item can't be shipped to your selected destination. You may either change the shipping address or delete the item from your order by changing its quantity to 0 and clicking the update button below.), but ebay will xD

cheers you guys, I'll get all that data, including the stuff from fuelly and try to plot it in graphite or something (a geek's work is never finished)

thanks,
//V