Mysterious hanging wire and horrific engine noise

Hi all,

Had a call from my wife to say that our Prius (2007 Mk2, T-Spirit model) was making a horrendous noise and she didn’t want to drive it.

When I got there it was unfortunately dark and on the roadside, so wasn’t able to do much. But could see that there was a wire hanging down from the underside, toward the driver’s side, just slightly rear-wards from the front wheel. The insulating covering was black, but where it was incomplete there were what looked like blue and white cables within it. At the unattached end, it looked like it had been cleanly cut. I have attached a picture.

The car switched on as normal, with no warning lights. On putting the car into drive, a very loud grinding/rattling noise could be heard. I didn’t leave it on for more than a second, so this is from memory. My wife described it as being like a helicopter taking off - it was very loud and didn’t sound good at all. Again, no warning lights.

There were no problems when it was driven this morning. It did do 500 miles over the weekend, driving on pretty rough UK roads.

Any thoughts or insights greatly appreciated!

 

Well...a quick update as I’ve got to the bottom of the problem.

Someone has cut out the catalytic converter. Apparently, there’s a spate of these in London at the moment. They go up the more the economy goes south...

Toyota quoted me 2000 UKP to replace.

 

No, it turned out to be a stolen catalytic converter. An expensive fix, and now the worry is the new one will go!