New Gen1 Owner from Tucson

Today I bought a 2002 Gen 1 Prius with 114,000 miles. It was in pretty good shape. Very clean. Had a clean Carfax. Needs a new windshield and tires. I paid $2800 for it.

Drove it home from Phoenix to Tucson with wife behind me in mini van. Engine died about 70 miles in. I started to coast off the road prepared to call AAA and suddenly the engine came back on. This happened two more times as I nursed it to my house.

The previous owner stated that she had the car checked a month ago and both coolant reservoirs were low on coolant. I failed during inspection of the car to check for agitation in the inverter reservoir.

As soon as I got home, I checked for DTCs but only had one on the emissions system. But the inverter reservoir has no agitation and the pump has no vibration.

I guess my first repair starts with inverter pump replacement. It’s nice to join the community.

 

Will a failure of the inverter pump cause the car to stall and restart like this? The more I read, the more I worry

 

I don't exactly know. The car would run at highway speeds, then I would feel it just start to slow down, no acceleration. But as soon as I got to a slower speed, the "engine" would come back on and allow me to return to normal highway speed. When I got off the highway, I had to travel about 3 miles through city traffic. It physically died out at two points where I had to pull the vehicle over and wait about 60 seconds to restart it. During the 60 second or so wait, it start but not allow me to go into any gear. After a minute, I could drive it normally for a short distance. The battery display still shows about half charged, and the inverter pump is definitely not circulating coolant.

 

Thanks Brian, I have a new pump coming in on Wednesday. Hopefully I can have it installed by the weekend. At that point I would appreciate the scan. Either way works for me. I live over at Ina & Oracle. As long as the car runs, I have no problem driving to your area of town.

 

Removed the old pump last night, installed the new pump tonight. The job is not that bad for DIY.

The hardest part (to me) was removing and reinstalling the hose clamps. I even had hose clamp pliers! The other hard part is removing the nut that holds the bumper to the corner of the fender to gain access to the nut for the headlight. Tip: use a short 1/4 ratcheting driver with a deep well 1/4 drive 10mm socket.

The pump sounded horrible at first, but I massaged the hoses and got it to sound like an aquarium pump. Then I bled it very well, and the pump is almost silent. Good turbulence in the reservoir now.

Took it out for about a 5 mile drive. No warning lights. No triangle of death. Both the HV and 12V batteries appear to be charging.

I’ll give it a try tomorrow on a 95 mile trip to Phoenix. I have towing as a backup in case of problems.

 

I didn't end up needing towing. The car ran perfectly. I put it on cruise control at 75 and just drove it. So far, I've put 185 miles on it and I'm getting 43.8 mpg. Not bad compared to my Jeep Wrangler and Toyota Sienna.

As for towing, I meant flat bad towing through AAA. I left it vague because many members on this forum are into hypermiling and apparently AAA does not support that. I keep it so if my wife has a flat, I don't have to jump. They are also my insurance company.

I'm now on to getting the car to stop pulling to the left. I need to get it aligned and put a new set of tires on it. The front tires are almost totally bald and the rear are not much better. Then on to changing all the fluids.

Brian, I guess I'll pass on the code read for now. I'll probably just buy a used laptop, the clone software, and a cable soon. I noticed in your other posts that you have a Boxster project. I do as well. This reminds me of Durametric discussions. I have a 98 base Boxster - Guards Red with a hard top. 97000 miles. It's only running on one bank of cylinders. I found the car stored (seriously) in a barn about 20 miles south of Sierra Vista. I think the injectors on that side have pack rat wiring damage and are not firing. I just haven't gotten around to dropping the engine a few inches to remove the air box to get access to the injectors so I could put a noid light on them.