Gas engine turning on right after start, revving high, and a p3190 code

Has the air throat area and MAF been cleaned? Has the spring mechanism where the air intake actuates the throttle been cleaned and lubricated?

 

I'm the girlfriend and Prius owner.

As far as I know, these have never been done, I'm not the first owner of the car and there is over 116,000 miles on it, so maybe it is time to clean it.

I also wanted to elaborate a little bit on my conversation with the tech, he was telling me that the engine is revving loudly but there isn't any torque, which I could have told him this issue has been slowly getting worse in the last two months. Its especially bad on the highway. When the code came up (P3190 Poor engine power) he speculated that it could be a power converter (not quite sure I heard that right on the phone) but like my boyfriend said above he has never dealt with this issue before and didn't know what exactly the problem is.

 

You hit an animal. Are you saying that the car was fine, you hit the animal, then you started having problems? What sort of physical damage was caused?

MAF and TB cleaning is usually the place to start with P3190. But what you describe also sounds like a problem with the engine coolant temperature sensor -- engine runs all the time, rich, because it thinks that it is -40F.

 

The car was running fine and then I hit the animal, the body shop and the mechanic are both saying it has nothing to do with what I am experiencing. The only damage that was caused by the animal is my grill was ripped off and the bumper is bent at the bottom.

 

First thing to check is the engine coolant temperature as reported by the ECM (engine computer). It should be over 185F after about 10 minutes of driving. You unfortunately need a scan tool for that, but even the cheapest ones will do it. If you have an infrared thermometer, you could also measure temperature of the upper radiator hose. Is the grille missing completely?

 

Yup the grille is completely gone, I'm going to have it fixed but just not right now.

 

you said you have no clue as the the maintenance of this vehicle...

this makes me wonder... how are the spark plugs and ignition coils? i've had an ignition coil fail without throwing codes. it acts real sluggish and doesn't charge very well. the only way i found out was by pulling the coils or unclipping them (either or... one throws a code the other doesn't)... when i pulled coil 1, the car continued to run exactly the same (indicating it was dead)... if i pulled any other coil, the car threw codes and shut down. so... it can run if one fails.. if two fail, it fails.

does it sound like a cylinder may not be firing right? like a slight limp to the engines balance? it's all load controlled by the electric motors so anything you do feel is lessened (i was surprised my engine even ran on 3 cylinders)

 

The spark plugs are fine, and the battery is charging fine. It just seems like the car isn't using the battery. I turn on the car and instead of the car sitting silently it starts to idle. When I accelerate, the engine revs, sounds like a "regular" car when the rpms are really high, but the car is sluggish and hardly has any torque. So my gas mileage is dropping like a rock.

I'm just trying to decide if I should just take my car to a very reputable dealership in the area and at least get more of an idea on what is wrong with it. I'm sure
I'm just jumping to conclusions and getting anxious over what isn't really a big idea.

 

has it been cold during these problems? do they go away over time?

is this your first hybrid? how long have you owned it? do you accelerate heavily during the first few minutes of your drive? (you're a new owner, i want to re cover the basics)

 

This is actually my second Prius, the first one I had was a newer one (2006) but I only had it for 6 months. The current Prius I've had since March 2010, so roughly over a year and a half. I'm located in Southeastern PA, and there was a recent cold snap, but since this problem started there hasn't been that many cold days. I don't accelerate heavily during the beginning of the drive, and recently when the engine starts revving loudly I actually lift my foot off the gas but once I put it back down it starts revving again.

Last night I went out and took a look at the throttle, its not stuck open but I'm going to clean it anyway although I wont get to that till next week.