My Prius dead again, with techstream this time.

Good Point about overfilling. After I drain the oil, I fill it with the 4 out of the 5 quarts of Walmart's finest 0W-20. I start the engine for a minute or so, to make sure the oil filter is filled. I then check the level, and it always comes exactly to the one quart low mark. Then I put the remaining quart in. So far, I have not needed to add oil between changes.

I used to listen to "Car Talk" on NPR. Their opening included:

"...and don’t turn that dial. If you do, the end of your dipstick will fall off.”
​

Perhaps @rjparker turned the "proverbial dial", and the end of his dipstick fell off

I will compare the 2013 and 2017 dipsticks when my wife gets home.

 

That part number matches what I see on part.Conicelli.com for both my 2013 and 2017. The diagram is sketchy, but it looks straight to me. Now I want to compare it with the dipstick of the 2017.

A thought occurred to me. When I was getting my Uber discounted oil changes at Sears a few years ago, I had one really botched oil change. First, the tech doing the oil change also didn't properly secure the oil change door, and it started scraping the ground the next day. For some reason, I did the next oil change. The Oil filter and drain plugs were put on waaayyy too tight. I had to buy a new 63 sided oil filter wrench, and I needed to use a hammer on the 14mm wrench to get the oil plug loose.

The next oil change was done at Sears again. This time the store manager came out and told me that the drain plug was stripped. she asked if they could use a temporary plug, and they would have a new oil pan the next time I came in. There would be no extra charge since I was a regular customer, and she assumed it was their fault. I assume that tech had been fired by then. Apparently the temporary plug was only good down to 1/2 inch, which is too big for a 12mm hole. I walked home, and they got a replacement pan for me before the end of the day. That oil pan probably cost them $100 for a $40 oil change.

My thinking is maybe the bad tech got mixed up, and put the dipstick from another car into my dipstick hole. The dipstick does look OEM for some car. If I am overfilling, I am not doing it by much. I never put more than 5 quarts in, after a pretty thorough drain of the old oil.

 

Interesting:

Top of both dipsticks, side by side: (2013 is the closer one with more dirt on it / 2017 is the further one that is cleaner)


Bottom of both dipsticks, side by side: (2013 is the upper one / 2017 s the lower one)


The Dipsticks are different, but equivalent parts! It is hard to get the dipsticks to lay flat for the photo, but the holes do line up, when the tops are forced to line up.

 

If you read the whole thread, my problem was determined in post #96, quoted above. It is easy to miss when the problem is solved when the thread gets this long.

In spite of my insistence that the "Bang" occurred under the car near the Hybrid battery, it must have been an explosion in the Intake manifold, and what I heard was the PCV and EVAP hoses blowing off their nipples on the Intake Manifold.

Unfortunately, my problem was an issue Toyota knew about. It was fixed in a software patch (part of the TSB) that would have prevented this explosion. I had to pay $600 to have the TSB applied to my ECU, since I have 103,000 miles, which is more than the 80,000 miles to get the patch for free. I am particularly angry at Toyota, since they could have applied this patch when the same Dealer was applying the "Inverter recall" software patch back in June. It would have saved me $1000 and several weekends without my Uber vehicle, to have had the TSB patch applied at the same time.

 

Sorry to hear that. You have probably seen the recent thread:

my 2014 prius v is still going strong after 200k now | PriusChat

Who got 200k out of their 2014 (pre ring re-design). Very vigilant about 5k Oil changes. IMHO, both 5k Oil Changes and cleaning the IM EGR passages are the minimum required to get a Gen3 engine prior to the ring re-design that far. Cleaning the EGR and Cooler can only help. My EGR cooler at 94K was noticeably harder to blow air through (by mouth) than the clean one I bought on eBay. I have two Prius v's in my corral to take care of, so a spare cooler made sense.

@Tim Jones, what do you think is different that caused you HG to blow? Just simple bad luck?

 

You can't control the past sins of previous owners. You must have inherited a barely hanging on HG. There is no way to see that coming. My 2013 is about to turn 104k. Hope mine can hold out to 240k.

 

My wife's 98 neon blew its headgasket at about 50k miles.