engine buck wildly when first started

wait for the 11's and hope they improved them. or go for a 10 if you want to save some money and don't mind the possible problems you see in the gen III section. all the best!

 

It could absolutely be nothing...and there have been reports and threads about Prius having rough starts....

But IMO if you have a useable vehicle, have NOT purchased...why take any risk at all? Just be patient and look around.

It might be nothing, it could be an omen of problems in the future. But since you don't own it? Why not just look around or wait until you can get one that didn't demonstrate this behavior on the dealer lot?

I see almost no disadvantage to waiting. Worst case you pay a little more for a 2011. But your last sentence say's it all to me.."Not Sure I want this one".

Well, in my opinion, if you are buying a new car...at least when you purchase you should feel 100% confident and happy with what you are buying. Why start out with worries or doubts?

 

This has been discussed in several other threads. I'm convinced that it has to do with ICE being started and then shut down within seconds. It happened to me once with my 08 and once a few months ago with my 10. In both cases I only moved the car a few feet and shut off the car just after the ICE started up. I'm not surprised it happened to a car on a dealer's lot since it probably gets moved around alot and alot of times it wouldn't surprise me if it only gets moved a few feet. I'm convinced the wild starting you noticed is caused by unburned fuel in a couple of cylinders causing a misfire.

 

Only red ones do this.

 

I've read where the ICE in the G3 can exhibit this behavior, but I've not noted it in the 5,000 miles that I've logged in my 10, nor am I aware of any major changes for the '11s. Note: I haven't kept up with the TSBs for the G3, since I'm an operator and not an owner (for now.)
It doesn't get as cold here as it does in the frozen North, and I'm still trying to figure out the whole Atkinson ICE thing, but I'm not aware that FOMOCO, GM, or Mercedes are experiencing any similar issues with their Atkinson ICEs.
Interestingly enough, the Insight chose not to use this engine type in their IMA...but I don't want to be accused of apostasy, so I'll put my blinker on and get back to the original point.

I'm not aware that the ICE Bucking is a common phenom in the G3, and I do not think that you'll go wrong in selecting either a '10 or '11 to replace a G2, provided that you have enough stick time in the G3 to explore the differences in the types.

It's a good car.
Whether or not it's a good car for you....that's your call.

Good Luck.
Let us know what you decide!!!!

 

:rockon:That was a GOOD one!

 

Is this what you heard?

 

WOW, I didn't know the Prius came with a diesel engine.

 

The engine had been run for short period and shut off while cold. Cylinders loaded up with unburned fuel and the liquid gasoline sat in the cylinders, unable to evaporate or escape. Liquid fuel does not compress without making some noise, shake, rattle and roll.

The next time the engine was started, it rattled as the system ridded itself of the uncompressable liquid gasoline. ...it smoothes out after running a few seconds.

 

Some of what I'm hearing sounds fishy.

Correct me if wrong, but some are saying, in effect - oh, this knocking happens sometimes when the engine is run for a short time, then shut off ...... so people, don't let your engine run briefly, then shut off ...... or unburned gas will sit in the cylinders .... and, and cause misfire when you start later on...........

what a load of crap! As owner of a new car, I ought to be able to run the engine for 3 seconds, 10, 30 and do whatever I want like backing into driveway to wash the car, etc, etc.....

and not be subject to some nasty knocking. I've seen 3 videos of knocking. Only 55% in poll reporting it never happened to them.

 

By all means, run it as often or as little as you like - don't let us stop you.

That said, I'm probably going to avoid running it briefly like that if I can, just to avoid this problem, at least until Toyota comes up with a solution. I think that's all that's being suggested here.

As to why they haven't come up with a solution, that's a whole different question, which nobody here can possibly answer. Maybe they're as puzzled as we are, maybe they know the problem and don't want to fix it, maybe they've decided that it's not going to cause any problems... Who knows.

The idea that they might know about it but not do anything about it reminds me of a situation at one of my former employers, where we built custom computer systems - not the type that you browse the web on, but more like the type that's in your car (but more powerful). We had to make a custom version of one of our systems, but didn't have the right heatsink for it. So I put in a custom order with manufacturing with specific instructions to never boot the board (typically, manufacturing would boot it to install the OS, as well as run it through a few hours to a day of testing while cycling high and low temperature). Of course, they missed that instruction, and ran it anyway. So I had to do some testing to figure out what temperature the computer had reached (somewhere around 20°C higher than the allowable spec), and some reliability engineer calculated that the amount of mistreatment amounted to about 6 weeks of typical wear on the electronics. So we sent the board on to the customer anyway (once we got the proper heatsink to cool it, of course), but told them about the extra wear and tear. I guess they decided that for something designed to last for 10+ years, 6 weeks didn't really matter.

Who knows, maybe Toyota did a similar calculation, and figured that some part that would normally last for 600,000 miles might only last for 590,000 miles. And that's not a big deal for a car that probably won't make it past 300,000 for many other reasons. Or maybe they don't know. I guess we'll just have to count on Toyota to figure it out and do the right thing.

If they don't, I have no fear that the litigious society we live in will do its job, and the lawyers who own Prii will be made whole (while the rest of us get a gas card worth a buck seventy five).

 

I don't know how common this issue is and don't plan to find out as I don't own a 3rd gen. I can say I would be quite disappointed to hear my car's engine sound like it's hurting itself for some seconds.

I don't recall that ever happening in any of my cars, and I've owned 13 cars and 8 street motorcycles.

 

hehe, here's the same topic in the Technical section. ;-) Happened to me at 6600+ miles for the first time, so you're not out of the woods at 5K unfortunately.

 

I wouldn't rely on that as a guide to how many people are problem free.

Those who have had a problem seem far more likely to look at the thread than those who haven't and of those who look at the thread, those with a problem seem far more likely to register in the poll.

My guess is that its relatively rare.

 

I have over 16k miles...and i heard this recently. My guess that it has something to do with the cold weather. For me, it is very rare to get this...and it smoothes out after a few milliseconds. The car runs fine.

My wife's TSX also had some erratic knocking that Acura/Honda never did figured out. Her car has ext. warranty till 8 years and 120k miles. I don't lose sleep over it.

 

you can't really control the length of time the ice runs, can you?

 

This has happened to me in my Gen III, and also happened to me with my 2007 Camry Hybrid (J code). It goes away, or actually, turning off and back on clears the problem. I think it has to do with the Atkinson timing. The Camry was a 2.4L.