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I think a bad fuel injector killed my prius engine?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by priusandbeyond, Nov 22, 2021.

  1. priusandbeyond

    priusandbeyond New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2021
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    Location:
    CA
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    So I bought a prius roughly a year ago and it's been awesome until recently. I bought some cheap fuel injectors on ebay and installed them on my prius. After installing the engine was rumbling very roughly but I thought maybe it just needs to run a bit for the new fuel injectors to get adjusted. I drive it around the block for a minute just to see if that might help and then all of a sudden the engine started violently shaking as if the engine was literally trying to jump out of the car. I immediately turned off the engine out of fear tbh (yes it was shaking so violently that I felt like the car might blow up). I then turned on the car again and somehow found a way to quickly park it in my garage (the violent shaking had not stopped).

    A few days later I removed the horrible ebay fuel injectors I installed and re-installed the old fuel injectors (I had cleaned the old fuel injectors with some carb cleaner which is what I probably should've done in the first place since they were OEM fuel injectors). I drove the car with no problem at first. I drove it on the road where it reached about 30mph without issue. So I decided to take it on the highway (luckily this was at night without any traffic). I ran it to about 50mph and I felt some rumbling again from the engine but I didn't think it was anything too bad so I kept going and took it to about 70mph. Shortly after reaching 70mph the car engine started to shake again violently. I took my foot off the gas and I got a check engine light followed by the red triangle of death.

    I recently ran it for some codes and while it was running the engine was able to start but it did sound rough, although the violent shaking didn't occur probably since I kept it in park. So it looks like the engine runs but there is obvious some problem with it. The battery is fine and everything else is fine. Coolant. engine oil and even transmission oil has been maintained. I changed the timing belt and all the air filters and probably lots of other small maintenance stuff. The car never gave me a problem until after I installed these cheap fuel injectors.

    At any rate here are the codes I'm getting from the car engine:

    P0102 (Mass Air Flow Circuit Low)
    P0113 (Intake Air Temperature Circuit High Input)
    P3190 (Poor Engine Power)

    P0A0F (Engine Failed to Start) <---IDK about this one because I'm able to run the engine. It can definitely drive despite the engine problem

    Anyway, I know this is kind of a long post, but I'm so desperate for any advice about this. If anyone has any input or feedback they might be able to share regarding this type of engine problem I would hugely appreciate it. I hope I don't need to take to a shop or do any major repair but I really don't know what to do at this point. This week has been truly depressing for me since I really kind of love this car and was hoping to get more out of it. Thanks again in advance guys.
     
  2. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    What was the reason for the injector replacement in the first place?
     
  3. priusandbeyond

    priusandbeyond New Member

    Joined:
    Nov 22, 2021
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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    The car has always worked and ran but it had a rough idle. I thought doing most of the maintenance would quiet that down but it never really did. Then someone told me about fuel injectors causing rough idle so I thought it might fix that.
     
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    We've had some threads here in the past that involved sending injectors to a service that restores them and sends back a report of before and after test results. The details are here and here and in the threads leading up to those. In astrolink's case the injectors were the problem (as clearly shown by the problem going away with replacement, and the poor test results coming back for the old ones before restoration) and astrolink was happy. In CClay's case, they were not the problem (as shown both by the engine still misfiring after replacement, and the good test results coming back for his old ones), and he was disappointed.

    The good thing about that approach is you end up with concrete evidence of whether you found the problem or not. To me, that beats just replacing some parts thinking they might be the issue, and then driving around a few days in that wishful-thinking state where you're hoping your butt dyno is telling you it's better.

    Especially with the intensity of counterfeiting in the present day, in a lot of cases I would wait for a darned good reason before replacing parts that came with the car.

    By the way, your two codes about the mass airflow sensor and the intake air temperature sensor are referring to a single part that contains both, located low on the airbox above where it sits on the throttle body.

    Any chance that sensor or its electrical plug could have been disturbed during your injector work?