Dealer Recommended Gen 3 Services?

Those prices are outrageous and none of them will do a single thing to make your symptoms better. A Toyota Stealership is where you go to get repairs under warranty that you don't have to pay for. After the warranty expires a Toyota Stealership is where you go to get ripped off for more money than all the other local mechanics. A 14 year old car needs a friend or family member or local mechanic focused on keeping the car on the road for lowest price possible.

If you let us know which city / region you live in we might be able to recommend someone who is honest and conscientious.

 

Those are fine things to do, and the throttle body may help, but I wouldn’t spend the money until you eliminate a blown head gasket

 

Yep... That's the Stealership plan... First overcharge for all the things that might barely help and make as much money as possible up front, then when they return to say transmission is still running rough tell them about the failed head gasket and Jack them up for another $5K without telling them about how Gen3 Piston rings go bad early so they can jack them up for another $5K in the future.

Best solution is to buy a used Gen4 engine that doesn't have any of these problems and have the mobile Oklahoma guy do the engine swap in your driveway in a day for $1500.

 

This would be better, I think. And would be a quicker and easier change...

https://hybridpit.com/1-8l-hybrid-engine-2zr-fxe-motor-bronze.html

 

This will be unusual for me, but how do we know the op has a bad engine much less a bad head gasket?

Granted “rough transmission” as a symptom is unusual, but that is often misreported when it’s really misfire based.

The op seemingly has not said this roughness is at coldstarts or perhaps anytime the engine kicks on or just about anything that would lead us to believe it’s a ruined engine.

 

Have you had it done before, and if so when? And which coolant, engine or inverter? (per Toyota USA: engine coolant is 10 years or 100k miles, 5 years or 50k miles thereafter, and inverter coolant is 15 years or 150k miles, 5 years or 50k miles thereafter)

That may be a new record. I wouldn't pay over $100 USD, it's a simple drain and fill.

DIY if possible. If interested I can post info.

@rjparker may have it. Has Exhaust Gas Recirculation components and intake manifold ever been cleaned. You're getting close to head gasket failure time, and all Toyota and the dealerships are providing is runaround.

Once the head gasket starts leaking coolant into the cylinders (typically starting with cylinder one, at passenger end of the engine), what usually happens is coolant collects in a cylinder overnight, and you'll get rough start in the morning, due uncompressible coolant. Eventually the springs in the damper between engine and transaxle fail.

 

Known as @HelloMcFly on PriusChat
Real name is Drew Griffin: 405-696-9828
I'm sure he'll know more than all of us about how to start your search for a Gen4 engine to be delivered and waiting for him when he shows up. The good news is you can go years with this head gasket symptom before you can't drive the car without damaging the transmission dampener. So you got time...

 

duplicate (server is slow)

 

You went in, ostensibly for an oil change, and asked them to check out "rough transmission".

They got nowhere fast with the diagnostic, charged $109. Then, the dealership service advisor, likely working on commision, recommends everything-under-the-sun, mostly at preposterous prices, some of it well ahead of Toyota schedule, some of it not on the Toyota schedule, some worthwhile, some a total cash grab.

Don't get stampeded, getting an independent to do all that stuff, just cus that service writer needed to make a car payment.

Maybe get back to that rough transmission. With 146K miles, presumably EGR and intake never cleaned, you could have head gasket starting to fail.

Are you in the US?
If so, which State?
Have the spark plugs been changed?
Any odd shaking during cold starts?
Engine coolant level stable?

 

There’s two shops in the States I’ve heard of, that’ll do this: Tampa Hybrids (Florida obviously) and Hybrid Pit Stop (LA). I know, a terrifically short list. Hopefully there’s more. Both places charge roughly $600 USD if I’m not mistaken.

If you can manage an oil change you can DIY the EGR cleaning. A garage helps, especially in winter. It’ll take about a day in total. You can split it up, say do intake manifold in one session, and the rest say another weekend.

There’s also things you can do in advance, when you’re fresh, say take off the lower bracket nut on the EGR cooler, and maybe the stud there as well. And just leave them off. Having that nut AND stud affords several adavantages: it’s then not necessary to remove the two rear studs on the cooler, and those rear studs will help to retail the rear gasket during cooler removal. Also, that lower bracket nut/stud is a BEAR to get at, the last thing you want to deal with halfway through the process.

(More info in top 2 links in my signature. On a phone turn it landscape to see signature.)

Just judging from reports here, 3rd gens are blowing head gaskets very regularly, somewhere between 150k and 200k miles.
Why they’re blowing has become very contentious. My money’s on EGR clogging as the prime cause. I would recommend EGR cleaning every 50k, if you want to keep it operating as intended, like it did when new.

Still, if your head gasket is starting to fail, and typically that means coolant leaking into the cylinders, EGR cleaning will not reverse that failure; the head gasket should be first priority.

A leak-down test or boroscope inspection are the go to’s for checking head gasket condition. The latter easier for DIY.