Not shifting from second gear to third

I bought I used 2005 Prius with about 120K miles, six months ago and haven't had any problems with it, until now. The car slowly started getting louder in a way that I didn't notice until it was really quite loud. The car was not only loud though, it would also vibrate a bit. It has no issues starting, and when just the electric motor is powering the car it has no issues, but once I get up to about 18 MPH it starts to make a sound that sounds like grinding or maybe vibrating. When I take a right turn it doesn't seem so bad.

The first thing I thought was a wheel bearing issue so I brought it in. I have so far had four people look at it and here is what they said.

1st place I brought it was a a local shop. They said it wasn't a wheel bearing but that there is an issue with the transmission. They don't work on Prius transmissions so they were not able to help me but said it will probably be around $2500.00.

2nd place was another local shop. They said the car wasn't shifting from 2nd gear to 3rd gear and that the wheel bearing on the driver side is also bad. Quoted me $2500.00 to repair the transmission and $400.00 for the wheel bearing.

3rd person to look at it is a friend of a friend that works on Prius. When he first heard the car he said "wheel bearing" but after driving it he confirmed the car is not shifting from 2nd gear into 3rd. I asked him if he thought there was an issue with the wheel bearing and he said he did not. He was surprised that the car was not shifting and said that when a Prius transmission goes bad the car usually won't run at all. That was also what I had read during the research that I had done online. He said there is a sensor that tells the car when to shift and that it might be bad.

4th place a brought it to was another local shop. Fearing that there might be an issue besides the bad transmission I brought it to another garage to confirm there wasn't an issue with the wheel bearing. I went on a quick test drive with him and he immediately said it is not a bad wheel bearing but that a motor mount is broken. His diagnosis was immediate (in a way that makes you think he knows what he's talking about) and he said that the reason it doesn't vibrate when I turn to the right is because the broken motor mount is on the driver side. His garage was full so he wasn't able to confirm his diagnosis today, but told me to bring it back first thing tomorrow.

So I have two questions. My first one is, has anybody had an issue with a Prius that doesn't shift from second to third gear and what did you do?

Second, does the motor mount diagnosis make sense?

 

Wow, thanks everybody. I just joined today specifically for this issue and am amazed at how quickly people are responding and with such useful information.

This is my first Prius (or Hybrid/electric car), so a lot of the subtleties of the sounds (or lack there of) that this car makes are beyond me. The sound it is making doesn't sound like a bad transmission to me, but then again like I said this is my first hybrid.

I have a follow up question, is it true that the transmission would just "not work" if there was an issue with it? Do transmissions get loud and start to vibrate when there is an issue with them? From all of the research I have done I'm just not finding anything that sounds like my issue and am hoping this isn't gong to be an expensive one to repair.

 

Hello All,

Just wanted to give a final response to this post in case anybody in the future has a similar issue.

Following the advice of everyone here I finally decided to bring it to the Toyota dealership to have them run a diagnostic. I honestly wasn't excited about spending $130.00 just to find out what the issue was but now am glad I did.

They gave me a long list of issues, but the two most important were bad hub and bearings on the front (both sides), and a bad axle seal on the drivers side. They quoted me $1050.00 for the hub and bearings (that's for both sides), and $420.00 for the seal. The second amount didn't include replacing the axle, it was just to replace the seal.

I called around to a few places and found a guy to do the hub and bearings for $460.00, and the axle seal for $180.00. He said that when he opened the cap (my word not his) on the top of the transmission that the fluid literally shot out of the transmission (the car wasn't running at the time). He said the transmission had too much fluid in it and may have contributed to the car having issues (does that make sense?). Since the repairs have been finished the car has been running more or less perfectly and the noises have disappeared.

One of the other issues the Toyota dealership mentioned was that the drive belt had excessive cracks. They told me that if I have any of the quoted repairs done there, they will subtract the $130.00 diagnostic charge from it. The quote they gave me for replacing the drive belt was $175.00 so I am thinking about brining it in to them to have them replace it for $45.00 so that I get a little more out of that $130.00 initial cost.

Again, thanks to all of you for your advice, it was very helpful.