Bad engine

An alloy head engine will destroy itself quickly. At motorway speeds particularly. My Dad had a NISSAN 6 cyl engine - the dealership had failed to tighten the radiator hose properly (which they'd replaced 10 minutes earlier as a routine change), it blew off.

Dad saw the cloud of steam as the dashboard lit up and went into "limp-home-mode) - then the engine stopped. Head destroyed.

 

this is (one of many) achilles heals on the prius, and has been through the generations.

it's shameful that toyota doesn't put a rock guard on the radiator. even without the blown engine, it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

 

Wow, that stinks! I have heard a Toyota Mechanic stating that those plastic radiators coming into the dealership with damage from the roads isn't uncommon....Toyota definitely needs to do something to get them better protected or replace with something NOT plastic!

 

Hitting a rock won't be a whole lot better with aluminum than plastic for the radiator. Both are fragile. I would not expect the warranty to cover road debris damage. Glad your insurance picked it up. That's one of the reasons for having it.

 

After you get your car back, it's a good idea to install some mesh hardware cloth type guard behind the grill openings to prevent rocks from coming through and damaging your main and inverter coolant radiators.

Some use gutter guard, comes in rolls and the mesh size is about perfect to allow air through, but screen out or at least deflect/slow down rocks that come through the grill openings.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

You think it can be done without taking the whole bumper cover out?
Can anyone recommend any type of mesh?

 

I did mine yesterday. I think you would be able to do it with the bumper on place. will be fiddly though.
remove the top plastic (held in place with three clips). the bottom grill pops out (there are clips and it will push inwards from the front of the car). you could remove that and fit the mesh and then refit it after using the large opening to work on the small grill panel at the top of the bumper.

 

did you buy any prius fit mesh ? i thought i could use that screen mesh for windows they sell at home depot, any recomendation?

 

i used this

 

I did mine with this black powder coated gutter guard from Lowe's.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Amerimax-Lock-in-Gutter-Guard-Black/1000979076

I clipped it behind the plastic grill with black insulated solid copper wire. All I had to get was to remove the four plastic rivets that held on the plastic panel above the bumper fascia and the radiator support.

It's been there for seven years.

 

I’m thinking* of 1/4” galvanized steel rodent mesh, with something to stand it off, about 1/2” in front of radiator surface. The first “rad” is actually for the AC if I’m not mistaken.

* So far thinking’s all I’ve done…

 

Don't use window screen, the mesh is too tight and won't allow enough air to move through it. There will be air resistance and possibly overheating.

1/4 inch mesh is about the smallest I'd go.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Yes, and it tends to clog up too easily - leaves, insects, seeds, camels etc.

 

Camels?

Dromedary or cigarettes?

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I was doing a 2 day visit to Birdsville Primary School as an Accounting Advisor. School of about a dozen students, in the middle of nowhere, and no financial experts, so depended on a visit a few times a year to check on how it was going. I was with the Maths Advisor and the Literacy Advisor doing the same thing.

And this Camel Train went past the school. To me, from near Brisbane, it was a never-before sight, but the children took it in their stride, along with Emus, Goannas and Kangaroos.

 

Sorry that happened to you, but at least your insurance company picked it up under collision.

60 seconds is actually quite a long time for an aluminum engine to operate under a full load during an over-temp event.
---enough time to tweak the head and allow the (non) coolant and lube systems to start swapping fluids.
Toyota is actually quite blameless for that.

As for whether you failed the car or the car failed you?
The obvious trick would be to design a car that detects a malfunction and alerts the driver BEFORE the engine is damaged.....and I'll let Prime drivers weigh in on that.

HOWEVER (comma!)
I'm a "little" surprised that the car went from ops-normal and blew right through a loss-of-coolant incident and into a critical over-temp event without letting the driver know something evil was going on in 60 seconds....buuuuuut I don't buy cars that are not equipped with temperature gauges....that is until I go over to the dark side and roll a BEV - but I'm thinking that normal operating temps are kinda important for THEM too.

Be sure and check the vehicle's on-line maintenance history and Carfax before you decide to sell the car - unless you just plan on trading the car in for another one in a few years.

Good Luck!

 

About the 2010 Prius in your profile ... did you buy that from someone who had already installed a temperature gauge?

 

Good Question.

The last Toyota I bought was in 1989.
My fifth in a row.
After getting doinked over by their service department once too often I swore an oath that I would NEVER buy another one.

Ever.

Normally?
I suck at keeping oaths.
I'm as honest as most humans, even with myself sometimes.
It's not a Matthew 5:37 kinda thing...but I figure that GOD has a sense of humor and it's activated by the word...."never."

Examples:
...I did get married again.
...I did a tour on a second submarine....and a second deployment in OEF/OIF.
...I retired from the USN.
...I bought, and use, a personal iPhone.
I even considered voting for you-know-who......(sometimes? NEVER MEANS NEVER!!!)

I've also never bought another Toyota.
I weakened and went to one of their lots with my CFO once or twice, but fortunately I was protected by the SE Toyota group.
Their sales people were so horrible at their jobs that my CFO was the one who insisted that we leave!!!

SO.....
Both of the Priuses I've driven were bought new by my company (Big Bell) as a part of a large fleet purchase in 2010-2011.
They were all bone stock II's (twos for the '11s) with only one paid-for option - that being the EZ-peel Blizzard White Paint.
GOD's irony, since (a) my beloved employer is well known for their......frugiality.....and (b) If they would have bought "Merican Iron" - which is actually two lies for the price of one.....then the white paint would have been Gratis....and would have actually stuck to the car for > 8 years.

"My" First G3...callsign "Goofy" served me nearly flawlessly until 2018 (160,000 miles) when I had a chance to trade it out for a supervisor's 2010 with only 50,000 miles......and NO tracking unit.
"My" Second G3....callsign "Callico" for pretty obvious reasons, served me until about a week ago when at 90,000 miles I simply got tired of driving a car that was deserving of the name..."Callico."

An associate recently retired and she was driving a 2014 Ford "Hello Kitty" style van....call-sign "Disco" and I swapped them.....

The Ford is pretty horrible.
Most Fords are....but it has an acceptable ride height, decent cargo space, and let's face it.....I traded in a PRIUS for it, which almost automatically means that it rides better and has better seats.
Most important of all it's the epitome of non-descript, which for somebody with 23 years in the phone factory, with a flawless record, who drives a car with a 1-800-HOWZMYDRIVING sticker on it, is increasingly important in a world where idiot, self-entitled drivers are the norm.

Oh....and it does have a temperature gauge.

I'll get around to changing my profile as soon as Ida decides where she's coming ashore.
I figure that with 10 years and something like 200,000+ miles in type, I'm as qualified as any other internet chucklehead to opine (sometimes accurately) about the joys of Priusdom.

Besides....if I mess up a word or two from the song book, one of my fellow teammates will straighten things out...

AS ALWAYS....

Actual Mileage WILL vary.

 

A temperature gauge isn't the be-all though.

If you have a catastrophic leak - like when Dad's Radiator Hose blew off the water pump, a temperature gauge won't detect that - because there is no overheating water. Like - NO water - won't be detected by a gauge.