HELP! No Acceleration, horrible shaking and sudden smell of rotten eggs... bad gas???

Your catalytic converter has failed. This is now causing the production of hydrogen sulfide; rotten egg smell.

Something caused the catalyst to fail- so there is another problem upstream. Left uncorrected it will repeat.

 

Any dash lights?

Cleaned the MAF sensor recently?

I pulled the fuel pump out of our 2010 at 199k miles and here’s what it looked like:

<a href="What did you do to ur Gen III Prius today???? | Page 862 | PriusChat">What did you do to ur Gen III Prius today????</a>

So if you ran it low, I’d bet there’s more debris there to suck into the pumps intake.

Good luck and keep us posted .

 

Yes, I’d expect it to do that eventually, but the computer doesn’t always catch it before the driver notices.

Are you certain the light works in your car? Have you checked for it during the lamp self-test when starting up?

 

What’s the battery showing?

I wouldn’t run the car anymore as the hv battery can only go so low before you’ll need to charge it outside of the car.

The pump suction is probably plugged, but it could also plug the injectors .

Worth looking into .

 

It’s going to say P0420, catalyst below threshold efficiency. Completely generic error that is already known from first-hand evidence.

Hopefully it will also say other things. Strongly recommend Toyota Techstream software on an old windows laptop to best read Prius-specific codes.

Check the oil- you know it was full a few days ago. The car may be burning oil, which could have plugged up the catalyst. There may have also been a misfire problem. Unburnt fuel will easily plug a cat. Possibly a long-running occasional misfire? Bad spark plugs? Long history of bad fuel? Blown head gasket? These are just some possibilities that could have led to the current condition. It’ll need some detective work.

 

Rotten Egg Smell...is classic symptom of failed catalytic converter.
Once that happens, with a computer controlled vehicle like a Prius, you can expect any number of cascading codes and symptoms to manifest.

But my guess is the core problem is the failed converter.

Running low on gas, may of been the straw that broke the catalytic converters back.

Caveat: This is an internet, sight unseen guess. But Catalytic Converter would be what I would expect.

 

Also check your gas cap to sure it’s on tight.

If the evap system can’t ensure it’s sealed, could also be an issue.

Go for the low hanging fruit first.

 

A few months back we arrived home from a trip and found that the gas cap had not been replaced at all since filling up maybe 50 miles or more previously -- and the car had run just fine and with no warning indicators.

 

Just know on the gas cap it says it’ll set a code if not installed properly .

And we’ve seen it happen here .

So YMMV.

 

Okay, misfire codes. That’s a positive step; it’s supported by the drivability symptoms and they’ve probably been occurring for a long time without tripping the threshold for firing off the check engine lamp, as evidenced by the plugged cat.

So there’s possibly a problem in the fuel system, fuel/air metering, ignition or head gasket, in addition to a plugged catalyst. Factory service manual should be able to carry you from there.

 

$20 for 2 day subscription at:

techinfo.toyota.com

That’s the factory service manual.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

You can rent the factory manual from Toyota, I think it’s still $20 for 2 days. You can download the PDFs and retain them for longer access, but it’s a huge chore to get all of them. Other carmakers do the same thing. I typically just rent it for when I need it, because it’s always being updated.

 

If you were in London: make sure your insurance is up-to-date and full-coverage, and park in a shopping centre for a few hours, problem solved...

 

^ I'm sorry to all the affected Brits, but that was a coffee snorter all over the keyboard.