timing Chain

As I recall, to get to the ignition coils you have to detach/remove several other things. It's not like I can just open the hood and see these connectors right?

How does the pin get damaged? Could that have happened while changing the ignition coils?

 

Actually on a generation too when you lift the hood if you're looking behind your air box you are staring at your four connectors and your four coils and the four plugs now granted taking them off and reaching them You're going to need to undo some 10 mm hold down bolts but usually you undo the plugs and withdraw all four plugs from the coils first before you start undoing the coils It's just easier that way number four is extremely difficult. But what I'm saying is is you can see that wire loom running along the edge of the valve cover in that conduit and in that plastic cover that screws down to the valve cover You have to come up with a way to get inside of that to replace one of those plugs I don't know where you're going to put the connectors should you cut the plug off You're going to need some squeeze connectors some Scotch guard connector something and they're going to stick out and stare at you like a sore thumb because that's how most people would make that repair on the fly. The person who takes all that apart picks up that whole wire loom undoes the plastic undoes the corrugated plastic makes the repair properly and puts all that back together yeah okay unless you can go further down the line and unplug that whole loom that has the four plugs plastic the corrugated piece and all that but I think that's a permanent part of the harness I don't think it just comes apart.

 

Sometimes if you don't grab those plugs just right with your long curved needle nose pliers or whatever you're using I guess it could be possible I'm not sure how you'd do it maybe trying to manhandle it or something I usually people working on these or pretty aware of Toyota type connectors but sometimes you get in a hurry I guess.

 

I appreciate your help, but I don't really follow this. I don't know what the loom or the corrugated piece is and without punctuation this is hard to follow.

 

I think there's a gajillion pictures here online of the generation 2 with the hood up My coils are red so as soon as you lift the hood your eyes are drawn to the red on top of the valve cover oh well most are black or gray. The wire loom is the big hunk of plastic that runs right behind the coils if you will that the little plugs come out of That's the business you would have to take all apart or else use little Scotch lock connectors which would be readily visible and your eyes would be drawn right to them if you are into that sort of thing.

 

Anyway at this point the car is fixed You're happy and it's not stalling. Interesting problem for sure.

 

I would like to know though if they did what they said they did, ie, can these people be trusted? They said it would take an hour but if all they did is bend the pin back into place, that seems unlikely. Since they said they replaced the connector I should have asked them to save the old connector for me. But tomorrow when the sun is up I'll take a look and see if #3 looks different from the others.

 

So, a connector is where electrical wires attach to something. A molded plastic shell holds metal terminals (for the wires) in place where they need to be.

That plastic shell can get damaged (either heat-age or mishandling) and the terminals can move out of position.

The thing is, on most cars, having a bad connection to one ignition coil will cause that cylinder to not fire (a "misfire"). On some Toyotas -like the Gen2 Prius- a loose coil connection CAN cause the engine to stop running.

However, this would set codes like P0300 (or other misfire code), a P035x (ignition coil feedback) or a "low engine power" or "engine failed to start".

NOT a P0016.

If your car continues to run without problem, then great. We just are confused as to where that code came from.

Regular maintenance like timely oil changes help extend the life of your car. Think of "good" diet, exercise, and not smoking. It's not a guarantee, but the statistics don't lie. Go mark your calendar.

Car Scanner is a decent (free) app that gives you limited access to 2-3 systems on your Prius. A more capable app and device (like the Autel AP200) gives codes, data, freezeframe - INF codes, and more on all 15-16 systems.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

So I probably DO have a timing chain issue, I just haven't gotten that code again yet. If the ignition coil connector didn't cause the P0016, then it was most likely the timing chain, and that code is likely to come back.

Are these the 4 connectors (screenshot from a video)? I don't think anything had been removed yet when this video was taken.

 

This is what I was getting at that's all factory looking unmolested and untouched by well generally human hands don't belong there until. All four of mine look just like that except my daily driver has red coil so as you see when you lift the hood your eye would be drawn right to that area where those four red things are sitting because everything else in the car is black and silver and what have you yellow stickers that car doesn't look like it's been touched in that area and if it has somebody took the time to take that completely apart replace one of those connectors or what have you put the loom the corrugated wire guide and everything back together just as factory and that would take about 2 hours to do that or maybe more depending upon the skill of the person doing the work. And if you didn't have the tooling to take apart the amp type connector that houses these little metal terminals with the little stops that actually push into the plastic plug other things are going to have to happen I don't know a lot of mechanics that have those amp connector tools I have a set sitting right here and another set sitting over there and they have been very rarely ever used ever. Except when doing engine swaps putting engines that completely don't belong in vehicles that they didn't come from That's a specialty type of work that not lots of folks really do.

 

How long do you think they spent, if all they did was push a wire back into place? Certainly not an hour. Or maybe an hour is their minimum charge, although there was also $145 for diagnosis.

 

Yeah well there's all of that That's why when you pull into the doors of someplace you have to think in your mind what am I looking at per hour there are other charges that are they're not hidden but they're not off and thought about when you pull in because you have other things on your mind when you pull in people are in these businesses to make money no question about that I'm paying for signs locations all of that is very costly now you see why one little job is $300 that takes 15 20 30 40 minutes whatever because that is capitalism. That's why I don't pay rent in a high rent district and do all those kinds of antics and expect other people to pay for it My shop is where I live right outside my door so I don't have to go far pay for a lot of signage or any of that everything is done by word of mouth. If you didn't like what happened or whatever sound off in your best voice to whoever you want boom. That's how business should be done advertising on TV three counties away and all that seems kind of shady to me You couldn't even do most of the business you have in your own county probably and now you're soliciting people to drive from 20 mi away yeah sounds good A lot of business in the USA have kind of lost their way look at all these franchises and stupid nonsense that pop up everyday drain cleaning companies air duct cleaning companies just on and on It's actually quite funny.

 

the whole narrative on the P0016 and ignition coils doesn't add up. Either it's a misdiagnosis and the shop is not telling you the whole story. A really bad P0016 that requires attention will always return after you drive it normally, sometimes it can be fixed by just an oil change ("sometimes" if you're lucky)

if you're a DIYer you can cherry pick on parts that you can replace and save money. Shops in most cases will replace everything just to be safe (even when the other parts are okay, "hey we're already removing this part, we'll just replace it with new one")

 

shops normally charge a flat rate per hour. They normally waive the diagnostic fee if you let them do the repairs after the diagnosis. The diagnosis is really a scam in my opinion since they just plug in their scanner and get a report. It normally takes 5-10 minutes max and they charge for an hour of labor. That's why it pays off to buy a scanner since 1 visit to the dealer will pay it off.

 

Maybe it's not really bad, maybe it's just on the edge of being a problem.

How far would you have to drive it before the codes come back?

As I understand it, you need to have the car idling to use the scanner, but the codes were already generated previously, while it was being driven, and the scanner is just picking them up after the fact.

 

I wish I had known that, I would have asked them to waive the diagnosis fee.

 

The car needs to be on not necessarily running The codes that are stored from it not running now are in the memory and you just need to turn the car on to the accessory state with the dashboard lit up or ready mode if it can make it then your VCI connector should go into your OBD2 port and you should generate something all those lights aren't there just for nothing That's why you don't clear codes right away without writing them down taking a picture of the screen something then everything becomes amnesia oh we forgot we're not sure it was PO something something whatever yeah okay

 

But if you drive it again the codes should regenerate right? I cleared the codes to see if the work we had done on it had made a difference.

 

Yes I have a car right now with the PO16 timing crankshaft sensor business that everyone's discussing about here this is in a work vehicle that I drive the ever live in hee Haw out of and don't do any maintenance to hardly because it's an abused work vehicle I mean so it's 10:12-15,000 mi oil changes so on and so forth I'm going to change the oil in this thing tomorrow and see if that makes a difference It's been a while It probably will but who knows I don't know how many sensors are on this thing but this has to do with the crank the cam and the timing business all not being in whatever kind of alignment Toyota says it's supposed to have so there are many very things in the timing system that have to play ball together One thing that can do this very easily apparently is really dirty oil which right now I am very guilty of but this car has always been treated this way. My other three not.

 

Are you looking at the oil on the dipstick to tell if it's dirty?