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2003, big service

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Mjolinor, Dec 28, 2008.

  1. Mjolinor

    Mjolinor New Member

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    I've never been one for servicing regularly, mainly because I am lazy and also because if you do the sums it doesn't add up money wise. However as these things are complex in the extreme I have decided to take this newly acquired car to a Toyota garage and get them to give it one, comprehensive fluid change / service. The car has done almost 87k and I am assuming there is a bigish service scheduled at 90k though I don't have any real idea, just guessing :) .

    Obviously oil and filters but what else. I was thinking timing belt, what about gearbox oil,, brake fluid, coolant. Sad to say the faith I have in the Toyota people knowing what to do is close to zero so I would prefer to tell them what I want. My service history is not complete, particularly in the last 30k or so. I don't know if this is because it's lost or just never happened so it's probably safest to assume it never happened.

    Has anyone got a list, maybe there is a list on here soemwhere but I can't find one.

    Thanks.
     
    #1 Mjolinor, Dec 28, 2008
  2. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    You can find the North American Scheduled Maintenance Guide here:
    Toyota Parts and Service

    There is no timing belt, instead a chain is used so no periodic replacement is required.

    The SMG is silent regarding brake fluid and transaxle fluid. I recommend that you have both replaced now.

    If your engine and inverter coolant is pink SLLC (Super Long Life Coolant) the factory fill should be replaced at 100K miles, subsequent changes at 50K miles. If your coolant is red LLC then it should be replaced at 30K mile intervals. If your coolant is other than pink or red, then it should be flushed out and the correct Toyota coolant installed.

    Since you are located in Europe you should also refer to the Toyota Europe website:
    http://www.toyota-europe.com/

    However you may not be able to find the equivalent of SMG for the Classic Prius model on that website.
     
    #2 Patrick Wong, Dec 28, 2008
  3. JimboK

    JimboK One owner, low mileage

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    Even if your faith was better, I would still tell them what to do. Reports are common of dealers selling maintenance items that aren't needed and sometimes even impossible to do in the Prius. Some dealers have generic [X]-mile packages they sell, without regard for whether all of the package components apply to a particular car model.
     
    #3 JimboK, Dec 28, 2008
  4. Mjolinor

    Mjolinor New Member

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    Now that was a shock to me, being a strange old Englishman I have for years refused to buy cars with elastic bands running the camshaft on the grounds that they are too important to make out of plastic. Choice is limited when you do that and I have mostly run Mercedes. I assumed that the Prius would use a belt in order to keep weight down (and cost).

    I looked through the links and it seems one needs to change hte oil and filter every 2,500 miles, that seems totally bizarre to me.

    That is a list of all service entries between my last Toyota stamp and my current mileage.

    With duplicates removed it looks like:
    Replace
    Inspect
     
    #4 Mjolinor, Dec 29, 2008
  5. Mjolinor

    Mjolinor New Member

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    I just rang the Toyota garage and they want £450 for the 90k service plus the fluid changes which are not down on the normal UK 90 k service.

    Seems a tad steep to me :)
     
    #5 Mjolinor, Dec 29, 2008
  6. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Mjolinor is that 87k km or miles? I will assume the latter. All of the 'inspect' items could be done by an otherwise competent mechanic with no hybrid vehicle experience. As well the engine air filter and oil and engine oil filter exchanges. All those should certainly be done if yours has gone a long (or unknown) way without servicing.

    Brake shops can test the brake system (DOT 3) fluid to determine if it has absorbed too much water. If not and it also has a good appearance there would seem to be no need to change that. Note however that brake system functional inspections are always a good idea.

    You are about at the time when the transaxle fluid (Toyota type T IV) and both coolant loops (Toyota type SLLC is the better newer stuff) ought to be exchanged, and those do require a bit of hybrid vehicle experience.

    As the iridium spark plugs are good for 60k to 120k miles (depending on who you ask) it may very well be time for a new set of those. Nearby (but deeply buried) find the PCV valve and change that.

    2001- 2003 Prius can accumulate soot on the throttle butterfly and that should be cleaned if it's substantial.

    I completely agree that Prius oil/filter exchanges every 2500 miles would be bizarre. With good quality oil, three times that long wouldn't be 'long'. With chemical analyses of the used oil to assure things are going well, five times that long would certainly be reasonable. But not longer than annual intervals, regardless of the distance traveled.
     
    #6 tochatihu, Dec 29, 2008
  7. Mjolinor

    Mjolinor New Member

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    Does the diff use separate oil? It is specifically mentioned separately in the above lists but the Toyota bloke said it uses the ATF for lubrication in the same body as the planetary set.

    Brimming with confidence about these Toyota mechanics, can you tell? :)

    I think I will do it myself, my only concern in the list is the inverter coolant, it seems like it can be a dog and the costs for getting it wrong approach the value of the car. IGBTs dissipate huge amounts of power as heat.

    Is Toyota the recommended source for the coolant or can it be bought elsewhere? Are the specs for the fluids on here soemwhere, the Toyota man said the use 5w30 oil but some on here recomend 0w30 not sure it matters and I will probably stick to the 5w30.
     
    #7 Mjolinor, Dec 29, 2008
  8. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    The North American oil change interval had been 7,500 miles for Classic. The interval decreased to 5K miles for 2G and other Toyota models, due to problems Toyota had with engine oil gelling and the associated lawsuits.

    The differential oil and transmission fluid are one and the same with the Prius transaxle. You can certainly DIY all maintenance, the inverter coolant requires time and patience but you can do it.

    Note the sound of the inverter coolant pump before you start, and also note the appearance of the fluid level in the reservoir, where you see a step in the level. After you drain the old fluid and put new fluid in, you need to work at getting out the air until the pump sound and appearance of the reservoir fluid are back to normal.

    The Toyota-Europe website that I cited in post #2 has a subscription site where you can download repair manual info for your vehicle. I strongly recommend this if you are going to DIY.

    The Toyota coolant can only be purchased at a Toyota dealer. It is pretty expensive, a US gallon of SLLC premixed with distilled water costs ~US$20 or so, it will probably cost you double that amount or more (after you convert to your currency). You will probably need 3 US gallons to do both the engine and the inverter coolant loops. The ATF for your vehicle is Toyota ATF T-IV and you will need 5 US qts. Brake fluid is US DOT3 spec.

    Regarding the brake fluid flush, you have to be very careful not to allow air into the system. If this happens you will have to tow the car to the Toyota dealer so that the bleed process can be performed using the Toyota diagnostic laptop or hand held tester. I used a rubber squeeze bulb to remove most of the old fluid from the reservoir, then filled the reservoir with new fluid. Make the car IG-ON, then crack open one bleed valve at a time while you have a helper slightly depress the brake pedal. A tremendous volume of brake fluid will gush out of the valve into the vinyl hose leading to a glass jar to catch the fluid. Close the bleed valve before the brake pedal is released so that air cannot enter the valve. Although the above process works for Classic, it will not work for 2G.
     
    #8 Patrick Wong, Dec 29, 2008
  9. Mjolinor

    Mjolinor New Member

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    Been and gone and serviced it myself.

    Checked it all over, no problems, brakes OK, underneath OK, pipes OK, very clean generally about the place and the engine and gearbox were both dry as a bone even at the back from underneath, no oil leaking anywhere, changed the oil, filters and spark plugs.

    I would say the spark plugs had never been out (they were tight) and they were definitely knackered, the centre electrode was badly burnt but the thing I noticed was the carbon build up was, I thought, excessive. Very white as I expected being a lean burn engine but I have never seen carbon build up on the centre electrode as these were. The ones that came out were NGK IFR5A11 and the new ones were NGK IFR5T11, that's what the book said, not sure of the difference, maybe I'll google it later.

    I didn't change the coolant, I took some out and compared it to the new stuff, same colour, same viscosity, felt the same and I evaporated a bit to look at what was left and the new and old seemed the same, I am not sure what goes wrong with coolant but to me the risk involved with the inverter and air locks outweighed the risk of not changing at this time. When I know more then I will change it.

    Plugged in my Launch X431 and pleased to note no fault codes anywhere. I was hoping to see something in there related to programming keys but there was nothing I could find though to be honest there were pages of readings and I don't think I got to all of them.

    I read the battery ECU and saved a few readings, not sure of their meanings but they are posted below, if there is anything to comment on them then please do.

    battery lo time 0
    0nb charge time 0
    battery soc 55.00%
    ig on hour 0.18 hr
    ig off hour 10 hr
    et off hour 0.00 hr
    dc inhibit time 0 times
    battery block v9 15.38
    battery block v10 15.36
    battery block v7 15.41
    battery block v8 15.41
    battery block v5 15.34
    battery block v6 15.46
    battery block v3 15.44
    battery block v4 15.40
    battery block v1 15.51
    battery block v2 15.44

    The tyre pressures were 20 PSI or less so I've put them all at 36, it feels a bit hard to me so I will give it a few days and may lower it a bit, comfort being more important than economy. :)

    I stuck a piece of cardboard between the two radiators, about 6 inch by 1 ft. At the moment the car is only doing maybe 5 miles per day going for a newspaper and once a week about 20 miles to the supermarket, maybe getting warmer a little faster will help the car. If that proves to be OK I will replace it with a aluminium sheet (that's aluminum for you foreigners :) )

    It's probably phsychological but the car feels better though I must admit to having been worried about it for the last 3 weeks since I got it.

    The amount of carbon on the plugs is my only concern, if the whole of the inside of the cylinders is in the same state then definately it could do with de-coking, I haven't done that on a car engine for 20 years.
     

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    #9 Mjolinor, Jan 13, 2009
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