Inspection with 12 month Warranty expiring?

You should have a much longer hybrid system warranty, I believe up to 150,000 miles in California. You should check on that and make sure all factory warranties are now in your name, as well as your address for recall notifications.

In reality, you are not likely to have any issues for another 100,000 miles if then. The only other thing would be to get a complete system scan which they or some authorized repair shops can do. It's way more than the standard OBDII scan, they have to use a Toyota specific scanner and then they have to know what they are looking at. Generally speaking, you would see a maintenance indicator if anything serious was wrong.

 

I wouldn't do anything special. If you want, just make sure all the little things are working as they should. Things like power mirrors, power windows, buttons, and so on. You could make sure all the LED lighting in the rear is functioning properly. My guess is you're not going to find anything wrong.

 

What is your typical use pattern? Lots of short trips or some long trips or a mix. I change my oil at 5k intervals based on the definition of severe use being lots of short trips. Alignment every 30k. Trans change sometime within the first 50k. Tires every 5-6 years.

Those are preferences based on 60 years of experience. Not anything any end of warranty inspection would detect.

 

There's no chance Toyota changed the transmission fluid because Toyota considers it a lifetime fluid which raises the question should you ever change it and when? This turns out to be a controversial question and if you don't like Toyota's answer "no, it doesn't need to be changed", then you can find plenty of people on these forums who will tell you their opinion on how often you should change it. Their reasoning is that when they drained the transmission fluid, they found it was discolored as compared to fluid directly out of the bottle. That leads them to conclude that the fluid is contaminated with substances from the transmission. These substances are abrasive and will cause further wear on the transmission. Therefore, it's a good idea to change the transmission fluid every X thousand miles where X is necessarily a matter of opinion since Toyota doesn't provide a recommended interval.

[If I've misrepresented the argument in favor of change, please correct me.]

The argument for not changing goes like this. First and foremost, Toyota would tell us if need to be changed. Also, there isn't an automatic transmission in our cars. Automatic transmissions are complex: they change gears and there is heat-generating slip in the torque converter. Our cars have only a planetary gear set, which never slips. Gears are never changed, not even for reverse! The transmission fluid has easy duty in these cars.

Further, what are the common drivetrain problems in our cars? Traction battery failures and engine failures (in particular head gaskets.) A distant third would be inverter failures. Do transmission failures even make the list? They may be out there, but honestly I've never heard of one. They NYC taxi fleet owner that I know is concerned with batteries, head gaskets, and oil changes in the Prius v. The planetary gear set isn't on his radar.

My former taxi just passed 157,000 miles. I have no idea if the previous owner changed the transmission fluid, but I'm not the least bit worried about it. If I ever replace the engine or put a third traction battery into it (my car is on the 2nd traction battery), I might do it at that time.

I think the transmission on this car (if you even want to call it that), may be the best, most bulletproof thing in the entire car, and if I were you I wouldn't give it a second thought with such low mileage.

 

If a trans-axle is a closed system then how would it acquire debris/contaminants/discoloration except thru wear. Wear implies abrasives are produced. Can't be good for any gears. Unlike motor oil which acquires contaminants as blow-by products of combustion, the trans-axle only has shaft inputs/outputs.

 

I would at least change the transaxle fluid once. It's cheap/easy, and in my experience that first change is by far the one displaying the most significant darkening of fluid.

 

All excellent suggestions, but I agree with @Mendel Leisk about changing the transaxle fluid at least once.

Use Toyota transaxle fluid, it doesn't do to try and save a few pennies on some off-brand stuff.

That said, you should be able to enjoy your Prius many more miles.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.