Oil / Cooland leak in 2001 Prius?

Your wheel alignment report is fine. It sounds like you need a new 12V battery.

A head gasket leak is very serious. My guess is that engine oil is getting into the radiator fluid, or vice-versa. Further your engine's significant oil consumption demonstrates that it is at or very close to end-of-life.

If you decide to keep the car I suggest that you look into buying a used engine from a salvage vehicle, perhaps you can buy this for $500 or so. That would be much cheaper than trying to repair your existing engine. Installation might cost $1,000 or so.

The transaxle leak is another concern. If the leak is at a seal this might be easily fixed. However if your mechanic determines this is an expensive repair (for example if the transaxle case has a crack) then you may want to look into buying a salvage transaxle.

Good luck.

 

Well lost, this is a tough, time consuming fix. From my limited knowledge, it will require removing the timing cover (I read the report to say timing cover vice tranny cover) and other components, as well as, removing the head and replacing the head gasket. The seal ($6.62) and gasket ($33.13) are cheap, its the labor that jacks up the cost. It is by no means an easy job.

My question is, what is leaking? Is it oil, tranny fluid or coolant? Oil will be black, tranny fluid reddish brown and coolant reddish pink. Additionally, how was the diagnosis of "head gasket leak" determined. It should be done w/ a compression tester. The head gasket could possibly be replaced without removing the engine but, the seal "may" require removing the engine, tranny or both (most likely both because its hard to remove one without the other in a Prius). It is possible that you may be able to replace it w/out removing the engine, I'm just not sure. I would say on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the hardest), this is a an 8 or better. With patience and meticulous disassembly (taking pics, marking bolts etc) you could do it but, its also one of those jobs you could mess something up and it ends up costing more than if you just "had it done". I would not recommend this job for a novice. You would need some specialty tools (torque wrench for head bolt tensioning etc).


If I was in your situation, I would try to fix it myself but, I have extensive DIY experience in mechanical repairs and I'm an extreme cheapskate.

PS: +1 on Patrick's advice

 

Whether to fix or trade really depends on the overall condition of your car. You've got to figure that it is worth $5K tops (either US or CDN). What is really troublesome is that you are not having one of the more common major problems: hv battery, inverter, or transaxle. Well, maybe you do have a transaxle problem.

To change out the motor, it requires removal of the engine and transmission as a unit. It is quite a process, probably a two day project for the technician. This also requires gallons of coolant, motor oil, and transaxle fluid, and, if done by the book, axle seals and nuts. Probably the utter barest minimum cost to have someone repair this for you with a salvage motor is $2000.

I would not recommend simply replacing the head gasket if oil and coolant have mixed. This would cause very significant wear damage in a short period of time. The damage has already been done.