146k Mile 2005 Prius - General Help Please! (Oil, Plugs)

Hello all,

I'd LOVE some help or general opinions please! <3

Just last week I rescued a 2005 Prius from a local auction that had logged 146k original miles - the kicker was that the hybrid battery light came on and that is what seemed to force the old owners into giving it up. I'm SO excited to drive it soon, but I need some general advice since this is my first time owning a Prius or even a Toyota..

2 CELs were on in the car when I got it home - the first for the expected hybrid battery, but the second was an engine misfire. Additionally, the car seems to have only been driven about 3k miles the past year, after finding service records. Upon looking deeper at the condition of the engine, I noticed these things:

1) The car was on the "low oil" part of the dipstick, and smelled kinda strongly like gas. I pulled the Carfax and found the last owners changed the oil about 3,000 miles ago. Even if a car has barely been driven/sat for that long out of a year, is being about a 1qt low on oil for those numbers normal? Or normal-ish?

2) I dove into changing the spark plugs pretty quickly. When I pulled them, I found out they were somewhat covered in oil on the threads (enough to where I could wipe plenty onto my towel, but none was on the ignition coils). When I opened the hood though.. (and I'll attach a pic - and yes, the engine was that grimey when I got it) I found the ignition coil seal like this in the first picture. What?! Could this cause a misfire by itself, without even considering the oil? The plugs were black and carbon/oil fowled and I know pretty much - they haven't been changed until now.

I looked into the spark plug well with a flash light and a tiny mirror, and it was really dark black at the bottom there but I wasn't sure what I was looking at. (The piston head?) There was no carbon-y soot-y build up in the spark plug hole - just at the bottom of it.

(Oddly, the Carfax says this car has been to the local Toyota dealer for oil changes every 5k miles - awkard..)

In conclusion,
I'm very new to car talk and maintenance but I've been doing my research and I felt like I was supposed to get this car! So in your opinions.. what kind of things should I look out for or look into changing? So far I plan to replace the valve cover gasket, spark plugs, add fresh oil, and I was also thinking of tackling the PCV valve while I was in that deep for the valve cover gasket. (and clean the engine valve cover) before even trying to start her again.

Thanks so much!!!!!! Please let me know if I need to add more pics or provide more info.

 

I will keep a strong eye on this oil situation over time!! I have a little notebook so I plan on keeping chart of it so I can take care of this car and get more info. The oil is dark but not too bad at the moment, and a little above the low mark so I felt safe to turn it back on.

SORRY it took me so long to respond here, you inspired me to go reconnect the battery and try to start the Prius up after its been sitting for a couple days as I worked on it! (which put my spark plugs to the test I guess, lol.) The good news is that this time it started up with no revving noise. Also, no explosions, no really loud uh-oh noise, lol - but has some weird behavior I can't really attribute to anything.. except maybe the battery pack? I left her to idle for about 3 mins before I backed up a little and gave it some gas to engage the engine, and turned the heater on to see if I could get it going..

The engine was mostly quiet with nothing dripping or leaking.. there was white smoke from the exhaust pipe. But it's just that it seemed to buck a little during idle, before starting to make some odd revving like noises that were in perfect time with the display arrows on the car chart (the one that shows you the power flow between the engine and the hybrid battery and the wheels.. things like that.) The engine ---> hybrid battery arrow was flicking off and back on again and off and back on again every time it made the noise. After that went on for about 30 scary seconds, the car seemed to.. shut off? I could hear the engine just kinda.. stop. Then come back on, then stop. (During this time however, I was sitting in park.)

As for the engine misfire code - gone!? With no other codes showing up for anything else other than the battery pack. I haven't done the valve cover gasket yet, only the spark plugs really. If there was a misfire I'm 99.9% sure it would have re-thrown the code when the engine started up.. right? This may sound bad, but I've been so spooked by the idea of the misfire being expensive that I was waiting to order the battery so I didn't invest more if this car had been abused beyond repair, but now I'm wondering if the Hybrid battery might be causing MOST these issues? Sorry to type all this text but I am in need of some help right now.. thank you so much!

Thanks!! I'm off to do that now

I want to thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! again for showing me this. I went onto the website, and absolutely dug through this guys maintenance records! They already did the water pump, belt, and coolant. Yippie!! It seems I was on the money.. the last record they had for this car was titled (HYBRID BATTERY FAILURE). They actually said this:

"HYBRID BATTERY FAILRE ~|~CUSTOMER STATES THERE ARE MULTIPLE ERROR LIGHTS COMING ON HIS DASH. SAYS THE VEHICLE HESITATES AT TIMES FROM A STOP ON INITIAL START. ~|~HYBRID BATTERY FAILURE ~|~144849 BATTERY HEALTH CHECK MULTIPLE DIAG TROUBLE CODES P3000 P0A80 C1241 HYBRID BATTERY FAILURE. NEEDS NEW BATTERY CUSTOMER DECLINED $2932 PARTS AND LABOR PLUS TAX FOR REPAIR."

Holy smokes. $3,000! Interestingly though, my little OBD2 scanner is telling me the only code on the car now is the typical P0A80 twice in a row. I've read about the C1241 being related to the 12v battery, but the battery in here says it was put in in Feb this year.

 

Thank you so much for this clarification! Interestingly, I called Toyota today and asked about their batteries.. they wanted $1,900.00 (before tax) for what they called a "refurbished by Toyota" battery. I wasn't sure what that meant.. but he said it wasn't new. I thought about making a new post regarding that.. weird.