EGR Valve issue in Cincinnati, OH

checkk some dealers, might get lucky

 

Prius hybrids sales and service Scottsburg Indiana

They might even give you a good price for your G3 after the Head Gasket illuminates the "change owner" lamp.

 

Any more to the story? Symptoms? Codes?

 

Find somebody private starting on the marketplace craigslist the right questions that you a decent person they are easy to find but you need to be kind of a people person to understand all of that some people are good at it some not so much.

 

Also, what's your situation, are you ok doing stuff like oil changes, have a few tools, garage? Dealerships are typically useless, and third-party mechanics typically reluctant, unknowledgable, overpriced, or all of the above lol. DIY is the as-the-crow-flies method, hands-down.

See top two links in my signature, for DIY EGR cleaning. On a phone turn it landscape to see signature.

180K is where EGR is near-hopelessly clogged. It's also where a lot of head gaskets let go. If it's the latter that's happening, that needs adressing first; late-in-the-day EGR cleaning will not "heal" the head gasket.

 

This is the code where sufficient HG measurement is not being made and I'm imagining the EGR cooler and some related items are getting pretty clogged up so you're not getting the flow of EGR into the engine which for this Atkinson cycle thing is very necessary It's a pretty high flow amount of puke you're putting back in your engine when EGR was first thought of. This was not on the table I don't think running this much EGR into your system but hey that's what it's all about apparently. This engine is being fed like a bird feeding it's young basically regurgitating it's quite disgusting it seems and that's what you're cleaning.

 

Lots of unknowns here:

1. If the person who charged you $200 to clean the intake system actually took the throttle body off and CLEANED the intake then they should have been smart enough to realize that .you do not need to replace a clogged EGR. A couple of hours of labor and a can of EZ-OFF will make it as good as new.

^ This makes me think that your "change mechanic" light is illuminated and that you were probably charged $200 for what I call the "spray and pray" service - a can of cleaner sprayed into the intake and a prayer that your payment clears.

There's only ONE good way.
It's called a leak-down test which involves removing the spark plugs and using a $30 tool to see if......there's a leak.
An honest mechanic can do this test for an hour of labor - $150-200 at most.
If you have the ability to remove the spark plugs and the willingness to buy or borrow the leak down tester from a parts house, you can tell if there's a problem for less.

OK, so maybe I was mistaken about the leak down test being the only way to tell if your head gasket is OK.
Driving it with a clogged EGR is the other way.
So far you do not have the "Prius Death Rattle" misfire codes, or mysteriously disappearing coolant.

A Prius with 180,000 miles is like a 72 year old human.
I base this on a 250,000 life cycle and simple math.

SO.....
HOW "healthy" is your car?
Genetically, it's predisposed to having clogged arteries, but you may be one of those owners that changed their oil every 5,000 miles instead of every 10,000 - and religiously kept up with other filters and fluids.
The usual stuff.....
Oil level checks every 1,000 miles - like it says in the manual.
Regular check-ups.

Or?
Your car may have lead a slightly less-healthy life up to this point and you might have a clogged left anterior descending (LAD) artery, otherwise known as.............
A Widow-Maker.

The P0401 is insufficient EGR flow.
THAT means your LAD is clogged.

This means that the mechanic who said that you "could drive it around for a year or more without any problems." is either unaware of what the underlying problem is or this person is an idiot.
The other one (how many do you have?) is only slightly less concerned or only slightly less idiotic.

Sooner or later your coolant is going to start 'disappearing.'
This will indicate that your HG is already compromised, and the P0401 code will go away soon with no further action on your part.
Either you live is an authoritarian Nanny-State that will make you clear these codes before renewing your registration OR your car will become an organ donor fairly soon now depending on how many miles you drive per year.

Other than that Mrs Lincoln....how was the play?

Good Luck!

 

EZ-OFF being the lye-based oven cleaner? I'd stick to brake cleaner, sufficient for the job, and won't leave you with corroded metal embeds. (know from personal experience). The EGR cooler is the only thing I'd use caustic solutions on. For my barely out of the factory EGR cleaning, mildy-basic Oxi-Clean sufficed, but took some time.

Boroscope inspection (preferably with the cooling system pressurized) is an alternative to leak-down test. Relatively easy DIY. Leak-down test also requires compressed air

 

While the head gasket is certainly a future concern and should factor in to the decision to pay 1200 for an EGR system cleaning... Why would you need to start diagnosing it with no head gasket symptoms? You'd be wasting your time.

Without starting an argument and with no claims of expertise besides owning both tools, I'd argue that borescope is quicker, easier, and more definitive in regards to diagnosing a HG.

 

I fix phones for a living, so I will leave it up to the mechanics in the room to decide that.

A head gasket is like a fuse - SORTA.
I'll get to that in a second.

The THEORY USED to be that you can replace a few pennies worth of rubber before hydraulic fracturing happens down in the block.
Of course that was back in a simpler time when it used to cost more to BUY a new (or gently used) engine than it did to install one.
HOWEVER (comma!) I will not let the absence of knowledge, experience or training KEEP me from wondering if one might be able to detect a gasket defect with a leak-down tester before the gasket failure starts turning your engine oil into a yucky chocolate milk shake.

This is where my fuse analogy fails - unless you count slow-blow or anti-surge fuses.

But hey.....
We live in a GOLDEN AGE of firearms development and accessibility!!!
THAT's sorta why they call them.....BORE gauges.
While you have the plugs out, use BOTH.

Bore gauges, like compression gauges and leak-down test kits are all less than $40, and a picture is worth a thousand words (or dollars!)
Head gasket failures are not the only thing that can cause cylinder problems........

$1200 for an EGR angioplasty seems a little steep.

 

Stumped. Yeah reprieve may be short lived, lol.

 

Maybe a machine shop would clean an EGR?