<9000 miles and already having an engine/electric motor issue

My name is Steven, and I recently got a Prius C model one about 8 months ago. The car has been wonderful up until about 4 days ago. A little background: the car has about 8,600 miles on it, and has been driven with much care and with a soft foot. I have been getting 54+mpg tanks throughout the life of the vehicle with the highest being 62mpg and the lowest 48 (low pressure in tires), with the exception of a trip to Jacksonville which was about 41. Four days ago, after driving the car for about an hour I noticed a strange acceleration feeling on my foot when the gas pedal was not depressed. I shut the music and the A/C off, to hear what was going on (mind you, the car was in eco mode, thus it was not drawing power from the engine to power the A/C).

I will try to described the sound to the best of my ability, and hopefully take a video to see if it can be heard, at which point I will post it here. The sound was as if the engine was revving at a higher rage AFTER I pull my foot completely off the gas pedal for a couple seconds, and then the engine continues to idle even though I am not touching the gas. The car did not accelerate when I removed my foot from the gas, but the engine did not shut off; instead it sounded like I was flooring it when in fact I was NOT even touching it. This was very new to me since for the life of the car, right when you take your foot of the gas, the engine shuts off. Then I noticed that when I came to a full stop, the engine would not shut off either, despite the fact that my battery was full, and the A/C and music were both off. I also noticed that the car would not allow me to go into EV mode, even though I had a full battery, the car was already warm (an hour of driving), and I was way under 25 mph. I was getting 61 mpg on the trip before this problem began, and it DROPPED all the way down to 36 in about 15 miles. I then turned the car off and back on to see if maybe I had tripped a setting, and drove it for 20 miles (after it was warm) and could barely break 30 mpg trip meter (mind you this is city driving, where I usually get 60+).

Extremely frustrated that I was having this with a BRAND NEW car, I made an appointment with headquarter Toyota (btw I am located in Miami) for the next day. On the drive over there, the issue did not appear, and drove normally. After they looked at the car, they wrote down that the problem could not be duplicated and put into their computer systems that the problem was caused by a low battery because it had been run out of gas. Issue was that I had ran out of gas about 1.25 months prior, and never had this issue, and the battery had been fine since then, meaning I was able to put the car into EV mode, and the engine would shut off when the gas pedal was not depressed. I drove back home and right when I got off of I95, the problem returned, so I turned right back around. This time I had the mechanic drive the car with me in it. This time he heard it and told the guy who does the paper work to change what he wrote and that he was going to call Toyota to open up a "tech case" because he had "no idea what that could be". The paper-workman didn't change anything in the computer, but told me that he would when I come in Friday (today). I wait for about two hours before they tell me that the mechanic spoke to Toyota the day before, and they had told him that this was completely normal operations for the car and that there was no issue. How can a 50% drop in mpg, and not being allowed to go into full EV mode when I was driving less than 25 mph with a full battery after the engine is warm, considered NORMAL OPERATIONS?!?!

Here I am now, infuriated at the lack of care for a customer who purchased a BRAND NEW car for the sole purpose of high gas mileage, but now really questioning my decision. If this issue is going to take me from an average of 55+mpg to barely breaking 30, and Toyota considers this normal operations, I would have been better off with the Hyundai Elantra which has a better warranty, nicer feel (stronger engine), and if this issue persists better mileage at 38 HW, not to mention nicer interior and design for just about the same price.

Please, if anyone has experienced this problem and got it fixed, or if someone can point me in the right direction, any input is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions that would help you arrive at a better conclusion just ask. I am in desperate need of advice with how to continue since, as of now, Toyota doesn’t want to get their hands dirty and admit that this is not normal.

P.S. I was considering not even posting this at all as of yesterday, thinking that today they would fix the problem and I would be done with it, but due to the lack of concern and the severity of the issue, I felt the need to post here in hopes that Toyota does something about this. Also, please, I don’t need anyone posting that I’m a scammer trying to shame the Prius c. I love this car, and hope that this problem is resolved quickly.




Note: after the car has been off over night, it drives normally in the morning on my way to school, but it seems that after the car has been on 30-45mins the problem returns and then lasts the rest of the day if the car doesn’t cool down for several hours after it was last on.

 

thanks for the quick reply, can you specify where this vent is located behind the driver seat, thanks so much. I'm still waiting for my car back, I'm at Toyota headquarters right now, but I will definitely check that out. And if possible point me in the direction of the other member which had a similar problem.

 

Thanks so much, I will check this right when I get the car back and let you know how it goes.

 

hey,
After I got to Toyota yesterday, I first removed all the stuff (yes including some bags and towels) in the back seat to the trunk because they were going to install a child lock mechanisms which was faulty when I bought the car. That problem was solved quickly and properly as now I can open the door from inside without any issues. This was before the second time I took the car in. When I got the car back, I followed the suggestion to check the vent and make sure nothing was blocking it. since I had moved all the stuff earlier in the day, I can't be 100% sure that there was something that was completely blocking it. So I just drove home from Toyota and did NOT experience the problem. After I got home, I drove around for another 45 minutes to see if the problem would return. It did NOT. Today I am going to take it for a little extended highway ride to see if the problem returns. fingers crossed that it was just something blocking the vent. The thing that worries me is that I intentionally blocked it with a bag to see if the problem would return, in order to be sure this was the source of the issue, but was unable to duplicate it.

Thanks, the electric me, my main frustration was that the tech after he had definitely heard the sound with me in the car, said that was not right and sounded strange. Yet when he contacted Toyota they told him this was normal operation, and he went ahead and told me this was normal. He is the specialist Prius mechanic for headquarters, yet he said this was normal after saying that it sounded strange.

Bisco. I have gone through the owners manual, but not in its entirety. Your right, I should have gone through it to see if I could troubleshoot it, but the fact that a qualified specialist, AND TOYOTA, both said this was normal concerns me a great deal. I could not believe how fast I was recommended to check the vent here at priuschat, yet after waiting 8 hours in 2 days the specialist who said it DID sound strange, but then Toyota said it was normal, and he agreed! I am ignorant for not having read through the manual, but come on... a specialist that has NOT read it or doesn't know how to troubleshoot it other than "the computer doesn't say anything" how about they use their ears?! When the problem did occur, it was certainly loud enough to not need a computer to tell them if there was a problem or not. The reason to post here, as you said, was to try and see if Toyota would do anything seeing that people were expressing concerns over costumers which had a problem and then to not look further into the problem given that it was legitimate. As the electric me said, my frustration was that even though the tech recognized it as a problem, he spoke to Toyota which told him it's normal, thus they didn't want to look into it any further. they even had the audacity to tell me that if in 5 years there is a recall for this kind of problem, then the would fix it. I asked if I would have to deal with this problem for 5 years of poor mileage and performance before anything was done, and they responded "well Toyota said there is no problem" so pretty much I would be screwed.

KyBlue, I will test the car out a bit more to see if the problem has been resolved, but if not, I will definitely be writing a letter. Thanks.

 

The issue seems to have been resolved by keeping the vent clear and I am back up to getting 65mpg rides. THANKS to everyone who posted, and I have begun an extensive read of the manual. I will be going back to the dealership in question, inform them that I had resolved the problem by coming to priuschat, and embarrass the specialist who did not even thinking of checking the vent. The most annoying thing about all of this was that they decided to completely ignore my complaints since Toyota said its normal, yet the tech admitted that it sounded wrong. I went from 50+ to barely 30mpg and was not allowed to go into EV mode even when the car was warm, I had full battery, and I was driving under 25mph, and yet this is considered NOT a problem and "normal operation"?!?!?!
Thanks to everyone, and will keep you all posted.
-Steve