ORLANDO, FL. Can someone could help me doing some maintenance on my 3rd Gen Prius?

I reached out to him. I'll let you know when he responds.

 

No Worries. Never owned or even driven a Gen 3. I currently own 2 Gen 2's. both 2008's

 

Actually, I think we charge $600 for the EGR service. It is a several hour job when you include all the R&R and cleaning. The first time you do it, it's an all day or more job. And you will forget to connect various plugs and hoses.

Here's a news item I am about to put in another thread. In two weeks, I'll be retiring from my part time job at Tampa Hybrids. I'll have some free Saturdays in 2-3 weeks. I don't want to take business from Todd, but if you can't afford to pay the going rate, I can do you a favor and clean it if @ColoradoCrow's friend can't help and you want to take a drive over to New Port Richey. Just bring a gallon of Toyota SLL coolant to replace the cup or two I lose in the process. Also a PCV valve if you want that replaced, too.

 

@Tom Mayor : to help Jerry out, you can do some prep, any or all of the following:

1. Remove wipers, wiper motor/linkage and cowl. (Video #13, link at bottom)

2. Remove engine air intake snorkel, filter air box, and short length of rubber tube attaching to throttle body. (Video #16, link at bottom)

3. drain 2 qts of coolant from radiator, into a clean container; this’ll allow you to dodge coolant spill when EGR cooler coolant hoses are disconnected. This coolant can be poured into reservoir when everything is reassembled.

Note: throttle body hoses do NOT need to be removed. When intake manifold is removed (it has EGR passages), the throttle body does have to obviously come off, but it's coolant hoses are long enough that throttle body can be just lifted off and tied to something, say the adjacent inverter conduit.

3. Remove nut on EGR cooler lower bracket. If ambitious, back out the stud there as well. Getting the nut off can be done anytime in advance, doesn’t require any other removal, and can be left off. Ditto for the stud; you’ll need E8 Torx socket for it.

Getting that nut off will speed things up because it’s a pain to access. Getting the stud off too and the rearmost pair of cooler studs can be left on (if you loosen the bolt on bracket supporting metal pipe, directly above the cooler.

@NutzAboutBolts video links:

Nutz About Bolts Prius Maintenance Videos | PriusChat

Also, check out the tool list in first link in my signature, see what you've got. Relevant repair manual excerpts are in that link as well. Second link in my signature has more EGR info.

 

Trying getting that nut off the lower EGR cooler bracket. Again, that doesn't impact anything else, can be done any time and left off.

it's around 3 o'clock, relative to the braided coolant hose at center of this pic, just beyond it on right side.

 

All of that advance preparation would save time for Jerry, but would not be very conducive to driving to where Jerry is.

 

Of course I missed that bit. Yeah just the nut from hell then: it can be taken off, and left off; it won’t be missed.

 

Tom just called and we had a nice talk. Going to work out a date sometime in early March once I have some Saturdays available.

As for the "nut from hell," it's easy to break loose once you find the secret viewpoint and way to land a deep well 12mm 3/8" drive socket on it. I did quite a few EGRs before I stumbled on it even after watching how others did it. Spinning it off the stud is still a study in pain tolerance. I find it easier to leave that stud in place and put the exhaust flange studs in the way I took them out because the nasty stud takes a long time to remove due to having to ratchet it out all the way and bust up your knuckles in the process. But there's no way I'm gonna try to put the nut back on.

Removing the cowl and wiper assembly takes me all of five minutes, so not worth pre-doing. Air intake box is also a super quick chore.

Tom said he wants to do as much himself as possible. Naturally, that will slow the process, but be good experience for him. My first time, the pros had to step in now and then because we couldn't take all day or the business wouldn't be very profitable.

As long as you're in the area, the throttle body should be cleaned. It's far easier to remove the hoses and plug for the cleaning than to try to see and reach when it's down in the bowels of the engine bay. I never lose more than about 1-2 cups of coolant. Not worth the time when you get paid by the hour to take the time to drain and re-use it.

There's a considerable difference in how you do this when you're tinkering with your car compared to getting as many cars done and done well as possible in a day. When you need to maintain throughput, you're always looking for timesavers that don't hurt quality.

 

Getting a bit low, but I’m guessing they’ve been thus for some time?

From new to maybe year 3 or 4, both the coolant levels (engine and inverter) on our 2010 had dropped from full line to just below low line. I topped them up (with Toyota Super Long Life coolant, pre-mixed) and they stayed stable after that.

you’re going to need some coolant when you visit Jerry, so maybe score it now, top both up to full line. They’ll probably stay right there, but keep an eye on it.

 

Doesn't change much that I've noticed.

 

Join the club.