Idea: Low Coolant Sensor to Prevent Head Gasket Failure on Gen 4 Prius

don't take this the wrong way; but why reinvent the wheel??? There are already existing sensors in the car and all you have to do is monitor the engine coolant temperature.

If your cheap, why not pop the hood and check your engine oil level and eyeball your fluid levels while your there? I was thought to do that at every fill-up. I'm not one to stop someone from spending money that's burning a hole in their pockets - just so they can avoid popping the hood and doing some basic checks that your owners manual tells you should do.......

You do You.....

 

Gen 4 coolant dropping is usually due to a defect in the exhaust heat recovery system, defective welds or similar, allowing coolant to leak into the exhaust. Adding a low coolant sensor seems a poor solution, to put it mildly.

 

I agree. Spend money to install a device that could fail (considering the environment it has to operate in) instead of visually checking the coolant level? OKAY, if that’s what you want to do. You’ll still need to pop the hood to check the oil level and brake fluid (unless you want to add more devices that increase the likelihood of failure).

 

On the other hand, if a low coolant sensor was designed and implemented at the factory, it could be a good safety-net.

 

IMHO; They shouldn't have removed the coolant temperature gauge from the instrument cluster. Add to that the ECU doesn't even log an engine over temp incident. That simple adjustment to the software would allow Toyota to say - "look at how may times you ran it hot." and your surprised the engine or head gasket blew?????

Getting off the soap-box now......

 

I think they actually want to be driving a BMW or MBZ; no dip sticks. Just a $ icon in the dashboard which indicated "take me to the dealership" and I hope your credit card isn't maxed out.

 

i think it's brilliant. the coolant light comes on after the head gasket blows.
if i had an early gen4 with the original heat exchanger, i would absolutely buy one.

 

Okay, I'll take a shot at this:

Specification: A gadget that makes it easy and convenient to discover coolant loss before it becomes critical. Needs to be easy to operate and easy to install. Should be inexpensive and easy to understand. Needs to accurately show coolant levels- false readings are not acceptable.

Suggestion:

Get one of these tiny cameras with a magnetic mount, and install it under the hood pointed at the coolant reservoir.



Can't be that hard to supply power to it. Not sure how well it would handle underhood temps, but for $34 it's probably cheaper than any other sensor or doodad you could put in there. And you get a picture of the coolant level whenever you care to open the app and look, from the comfort of the drivers' seat.

I think a live monitor of engine coolant temp is probably even better, but if you positively want to monitor actual coolant level I can't think of anything cheaper, easier and more likely to be reliable than this.

 

would it need light?

 

Unknown, somebody would have to guinea-pig it and find out. Some of those gizmos have night vision, some don't. Worst case, it wouldn't be much harder to add a small light source on the opposite side of the reservoir and feed it and the camera a common power supply from the fuse panel.

 

LoL; I can't tell if your serious or joking. If money was no object; pay some kid to do it on a weekly basis. Probably the kid who mows your lawn. I'm probably dating myself, since genZ is too lazy to even do that. The lawn mower fumes or the blade may fall off and hurt my poor baby.

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I've seen those fairy lights for only a dollar.

OOhh; I heard that if you touch that hood release button - you can get cooties!!!!!