Real issue, or bad shop?

Brian, on a 2003 with 150,000 miles + like yours, I would certainly be shopping around for a well-maintaned, lower mileage used engine. It might just not be the best financial decision to install a new engine.

FWIW, I have searched car-part.com before for engines out of boredom, and found that used Prius engines go (at least in my area) for $300-$1000, depending on mileage on the unit. Also, from what Ive heard on the forums, engine replacement isnt any more difficult in the Prius vs. a regular non-hybrid so no shop should charge an significant premium for labor.

EDIT: I went up and re-read this thread, and saw that you got a quote for $25xx.00 for installation of a used engine. While I dont think that price is terribly high for the engine + labor, it sounds to me like its on the higher end. I would try and haggle with the shop "$2000 is the most I can spend, etc etc" and see if they can do a little better on labor.

 

What I know and have seen is that if a rod is broken, it blows a hole through the engine. It's a really catastrophic failure. No click-click-click etc!!!

What the shops are saying sounds really strange to me!!!

On the other hand, a bad ignition coil would cause a sound like you describe and some roughness. Why don't you ask them to try another coil first.


Here's what happens to an engine if a rod breaks.

 

"They confirmed #2" what "was broken"? Was it a conrod, the bigend or something else.

Also I've never heard of a bad spark plug or igniter completely taking a piston or rod.

I'm with alex above. A broken rod or bigend is normally a more catastrophic failure, with either the rod going through the side of the block or the piston going through the heads.

 

Also, try a new sparkplug in the cylinder that misfires. They sometimes go bad (defects etc).

 

A new sparkplug obviously won't fix it if the piston is not even going up and down.


From what I can gather the OP has already had it tested twice and confirmed that the piston is not moving. Obviously you'd want that confirmed 100% before changing the engine, and that's where I'd like to see a few more specific details. But if the piston is indeed not moving when the engine turns then we can forget about the igniter and plugs.

 

Obviously so, but I really doubt that the piston is not moving and all that was heard was a tick-tick-tick. That's why I'm proposing testing the spark plug and the coil.

In any case, I haven't seen the engine myself.

 

But the OP said in the first post that "Shop says with a scope they can see the cylinder isn't moving, but they can see cylinder 3 moving". So I assume that they've actually had a borescope down there and have conformed that #2 piston is not moving as the engine rotates.

Further, it appear from a later post that a second workshop has independently confirmed this. "They confirmed the #2 was broken".

So at this point I think we have to accept it, even though I agree with you that in most cases the root cause of this type of problem would be considerably more severe than just a rattle.

 

Oh well, good luck in any case!

 

There are various ways that the piston etc could fail like that and some would be a lot more catastrophic than others.

One way that I suppose it could happen is if the bigend detached and the endcap and bearing were lucky enough to fall harmlessly into the sump while the piston just happened to get jammed high in the bore with the conrod dangling just out of reach of the crank. That would give the results you experienced without anything catastrophic like a rod through the block.

 

Possible. Probably uber-rare, but hey...maybe its a sign the OP should go buy some lotto tickets!

 

I like that, dead simple test.

 

Maybe the screwdriver is defective??

 

Oh hey, like one of those trick knives, where the blade slides back into the handle? Every shop should have one.

 

Yeah, right after he demonstrated the stuck piston he turned around and stabbed one of his co-workers with that screwdriver. Right though the guts, ouch! But then he pulled it out and the guy was fine, no blood or anything. Amazing!