08/Gen II Prius - inverter and inverter pump relationship

Someone obviously doesn't know what the heck they are doing there. Charging you $750 for an inverter pump is more than what the dealer would be charging you.....the people trained to work on these cars. The replacement of the inverter pump and the inverter should take no more than 1 day, it's a pretty simple job. This shop seems incompetent and it'll just drain your pocketbook if you keep using them for the Prius

I think if your car has overheated and there's damage to the engine, you probably should just cut your losses and invest in something newer. I suggest you trade this in and move on.

 

It's really is a simple job, it doesn't require anything other than the removal of 1 headlight to get to the pump. $250 to determine the problem....is just crazy. The car will spit out a code in a minute with a proper code reader. I don't think a dealer will charge more than 1 hour tech time to do this diagnostic.....which will run you around $120 - $150

 

I don't really like a business where I have to argue and lead to a "their word against mine" situation. That is an awful relationship to have with a repair shop that you pay good money to repair your car.

I would find another shop or simply to go the dealer.

What exactly have they done to your car so far? What parts have they replaced?

 

If the part is on backorder, nobody else should be able to get it. Unless what was installed wasn't an Original Toyota part.

Just so you know, you can go to ebay and buy a used inverter for about $200 or less now. So maybe they installed a bad part? I just don't understand 3 weeks to install inverter, that's a 2 hour job at most

 

I think this comes down to incompetence of the mechanic or the shop. Whether the part was not the correct part, a bad part, incompetent repair, whatever....it doesn't matter. They should cover it. If you charged the repair on a credit card, I would just dispute all the charges and move on. Give the credit card company all the details of how the car keeps getting more problems after the repairs and they can't correct the issue to your satisfaction. Tell them you no longer wish to let them work on your car as they seem to be damaging it more every time. The bank should be on your side.

 

What a horrible story. I bet the original installation of the Invert coolant pump was not done right. After you install the pump it may have gotten air into the Inverter coolant pump loop and they never bothered to bleed it. That will almost guarantee poor pump coolant circulation if its there at all. And there's no Inverter coolant temp gauge you can see. There's no engine coolant temp gauge either. Which is really really stupid.
if there's a Inverter coolant perfomance issue you will never know about it till the Inverter shuts down from overheating. When that happens you won't get far.
I am showing my age here and I mean no disrespect to you or your family but I don't understand it when there's car issues and mechanics and service advisors involved why your husband does not step in. It must be really hard for you to deal with all these people about a car. I see that alot on this site. It must be generational.
What I am getting at is it kind of puts you in charge of your cars welfare so here goes:

Older Prius eat engine oil. You must check the oil frequently because if you don't you will run the car so low on oil it will destroy the motor.
Keep it at the full line. Always. Oil change the Prius takes 3.5 qaurts. Not a drop more.
We see this alot. No one checks there oil anymore.
Do this every Saturday morning after the car has sat all night and all the oil in the engine has drained back into the pan.
While your under the hood take a look at the Inverter coolant reservoir. It has a full line. Get a black sharpie and highlight the line. I bring a small flashlight with me and hold the flashlight to the side of the reservoir and it shows really clearly the level. We will check the Inverter coolant performance in a second. Next using the flashlight check the Engine Coolant overflow reservoir by holding the flashlight to its side.
It also has a full line that you can highlight. Its under the black plastic cover on the front of the engine. Its a white reservoir.

The using the flashlight look at the front of the motor. Its on the passenger side. There's a belt on the front. Find it. Look at it and see if it has any cracks in it. keep an eye on it. Then look below the belt on the splashpan under the engine and look for green specks. That will alert you to the pump is leaking antifreeze. The belt's only job is to turn the engine water pump. No belt no waterpump and the engine will overheat. You will never know if the belt falls off till you see an engine icon on the dash. Too late...engine severely overheated. My original belt at 75,000 miles looked really bad after I took it off. I would not go past 80K miles on the original belt. The cost of its failure is extremely high and could total the car.
Now lets check the Invert coolant pump performance. With the hood still open make the car READY. The engine may start it may not. Doesn't matter. Take the black cap off the Inverter coolant reservoir and look into it with a flashlight and you should very good agitation of the fluid in that tank. Should be bubbling in there reflecting good pump circulation. If good put the cap back on. This whole inspection takes less then 2 minutes.
if your not willing to do this religiously you will have alot of aggravation in your life.

This is really basic maintenance of any car. But given the fact that there's really not alot of operational gauges in a Prius just idiot lights your forced to monitor its health much more than a regular car. You kind of have to discover any issues before the car does. Not good. A used Prius is a poor choice for some people.

PS: Its very unlikely whatever you scraped affected the Inverter coolant pump. Its on the top of the engine. It also routes coolant through the transmission too but the to and from hoses to the trans from the Inverter reservoir are mounted very high on the trans.