Gen 2: Harsh Cut In Of Petrol Engine

[JonFB]

Hi there, Wonder if anyone has any experience / thoughts on the following. When at rest, say at a traffic light and running in electric mode, if the engine needs to kick in due to low Battery, it does so with quite a bit of force, sufficient to rock the car. It never used to do that. Also when driving along it seems to act much cruder than before.

I've had the car 2 years and this behaviour has only started in the last 6 weeks. a couple of weeks ago I had it serviced at a main dealer but forgot to mention this issue, and I suppose hoped it would have gone away but it hasn't.

I had a hideous thought on Friday and thought maybe it's the oil, but I checked and the level looks ok (plus they should have topped it up on the service).

I just haven't had the time to ring the dealer to book it in, so was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on what it could be.

It's a T3 on a 54 plate and done just under 93k miles, always serviced on time and by Toyota. I really want it to hang in for another year before I trade it in for another Prius, so I could do without it dying on me now!!!!

Thanks for your help