Help! Our 2005 Prius blew its gas engine!

Unfortunately your option is limited to replacing the engine! You can find used engines fairly cheap and have it installed by a mechanic. It shouldn't be $5000.

You can probably find an engine for less than $500 and have a mechanic install it for around $1000. You probably should get some mechanic quotes, don't go with the crazy one that quoted $5000

And just wanted to add, when the oil light comes on, it's too late. If you're going to add oil, it has to be done before that warning light comes on. Religiously doing it when the light comes on is the same as finding out you don't have any toilet paper while sitting on the toilet. It's too late to buy it at that point, the damage has been done LOL

 

Adding oil when the oil (pressure) light comes on means letting it run almost dry. Moot point now, but for next time.

 

Go locate a used low mileage engine at a salvage yard, have it installed all in for less than $1000-1500 approx., depending on local situation. Tell your daughter to never wait for the light to come on before you replenish the oil. On the Prius it means you have less than a quart of oil left for a engine that is use to seeing 3.5qts. full. On an engine that is already consuming a qt/1000 mile she would have had to be proactive not reactive. Now you have a choice, replace with salvage engine or look for something else to replace her daily driver.

You can contact these folks, they are somewhat near you.

Prius hybrids sales and service Scottsburg Indiana

 

Yep oil light means its bone dry and pumping air instead of oil.

And whats a hybrid engine?

 

I do hate to play pile-on-the-OP, but for the benefit of future readers, this really does have to be framed in a marquee with lights as just the way to finish off an engine that is using oil.

-Chap

 

what is the purpose of the oil light?

 

To let you know that you're too late, and life's tough haha!

 

The last-ditch warning to get you to stop the car now and add the oil you needed to check two quarts ago in the hope of doing no more damage than is already being done.

-Chap

 

is it technically difficult to have it come on earlier? i'm thinking too many false warnings.

 

By under filling during an oil change, I found out our OutBack does throw a "!" light (actually an info screen notification) notifying it's about a quart/liter low. Thank you Subaru!

 

could the different engine make it harder? i wonder how non hybrid toyota's perform, or maybe there is a cost factor.

 

"False warnings" is the key. It's a pressure light. It has two positions; open and closed. You will have normal oil pressure as long as the oil pump has oil at its inlet. Once it doesn't have oil to pump, it stops pumping oil and starts pumping air or, at best, oil froth. At the speeds and pressures your bearings are under, the damage is nearly instantaneous.

I've read that some cars have oil level lights, but also that at least some of those don't have dipsticks, so you don't know, as you leave on a 1,000 mile trip, if you'll need oil 75 miles down the road.

The most nearly foolproof method is to check it regularly with your own eyeballs and not to trust a float switch that might choose the worst possible time to stick.

 

Oil level sensor AND a dipstick.

 

I'm just thinking. Isn't it possible for me to design a kind of alarm/beep system, incorporated in the oil sump, in such a way that it would only beep, when the oil level is going dangerously low, than depending on the oil level light on the Prius?

On some Toyota cars I have helped overhauled or replaced engines, I found out that most of the problems I ha e had to encounter, as relates to overheating for instance, normally leads to outright stalling, and replacement of the motor engine.


Dxta

 

I suppose the trouble with the float switch idea is that stuff churns around a lot down there.

I suppose (with computer programs running on ECUs and all) they could have some kind of sensor there and only read it when the engine is off, and ignore it when running.

If I had only written this to the patent office instead of to PriusChat, I could maybe quit the day job.

Or maybe that's the issue. Maybe there is some other brand that does offer an oil level warning, and we're waiting for the 20 years to run out so we can have one too.

But the combination of a dipstick for regular checking and a pressure light for "UH OH!" is a really well established tradition....

-Chap

 

Stationary generators have had oil level monitor shut down safety features for decades.

 

This reminds of the many many post we used to see constantly about running out of gas back in the day...still see a few now & then. The flashing pip and the incessant beeping was not enough to alert some people.

So many people pissed off about it. And how come it was not magical enough to be able to get you to a gas station 8 miles away when you ran out of gas...lol....they tried and killed the hybrid battery.

Your car next to your home is usually one of the most expensive things you own and really one of the most important things you own. If your so lazy you cant check the oil once a week (it takes 30 seconds I timed it) especially when you know its guzzling oil then really you deserve it. I mean I check the oil on my lawn mower. Because I don't want to buy another one.

No oil blown engine. No trans fluid blown trans. No coolant overheated motor and usually blown engine.