Help to diagnose a noise with Toyota Auris 2015 hybrid

[pateviko]

Hello, we recently bought Toyota Auris 2015 hybrid. The car has a 1.8 gas engine and 227,000 km. We brought it to Toyota for an inspection and a Battery check. It all passed. 

When the car travels between 20-60km/h and the EV light is off, we can hear a clapping sound. It is not all the time. We can only listen to it when the conditions we mentioned are met and reach a cruising speed, which means I'm very steady on the gas, usually just under the central line in the eco range. Once the noise starts, it will not go away unless I give the car gas or release the gas pedal. If I can get the EV light to come on and reach the same cruising speed, being steady on the gas, then the noise does not happen. 

We brought the car to Toyota, and while they observed and confirmed the noise, they had no idea where it was coming from. There were no errors when they connected the vehicle to a computer for diagnostic.

[TonyHSD]

Hi, do you mean something like rattling noise vibrations like metal on metal or something similar that comes at certain speeds rpm? Can you record a video? Something like this? 

[pateviko]

Hello @TonyHSD, it does not sound like metal on metal. It is more of clicking or rattling, and you can feel the car slightly jerking. It is almost like the car can not decide if it is in the correct gear and if it should be using the gas engine or the EV. It happens in that "in-between" zone before it switches to EV. The two other people who drove it experienced it for a second right when the engine switched from gas to EV. My husband can make the noise go for a while by holding on to the gas paddle midway. If he accelerates properly the car switches to EV and the noise goes away.

[TonyHSD]

5 minutes ago, pateviko said:

Hello @TonyHSD, it does not sound like metal on metal. It is more of clicking or rattling, and you can feel the car slightly jerking. It is almost like the car can not decide if it is in the correct gear and if it should be using the gas engine or the EV. It happens in that "in-between" zone before it switches to EV. The two other people who drove it experienced it for a second right when the engine switched from gas to EV. My husband can make the noise go for a while by holding on to the gas paddle midway. If he accelerates properly the car switches to EV and the noise goes away.

Hi Elena, 

can you check this video and see if the noises are similar even if they come and goes away quickly. 

if you experience similar knocking noises from the engine it is very likely to have blocked egr and you will need to do a service procedure of cleaning the egr, egr cooler, intake manifold, map,sensor, throttle body, egr pipe. No parts need to be replaced except new intake manifold gasket and best a new pcv valve. There are many videos in YouTube and posts here. Let me know if you have these symptoms and will take it from there. 

[pateviko]

Hello @TonyHSD and others,

Fast-forward to the seconds 17-18. My husband was able to record the noise around. See attached.

Thanks for your help.

Elena

[TonyHSD]

12 minutes ago, pateviko said:

Hello @TonyHSD and others,

Fast-forward to the seconds 17-18. My husband was able to record the noise around. See attached.

Thanks for your help.

Elena

 

Hi, 

this is exactly as I thought.
Engine knocking and most likely as a result of blocked egr, egr cooler, egr pipe and intake manifold. You need to sort it out urgently as every time you hear that noise can cause an expensive engine failure or broken clutch damper. You need to find an independent Toyota hybrid specialist or ask Toyota dealer but later might be expensive. In uk some dealers does egr cleaning at around £300 cost. You can also do it yourself if you have some basic mechanic skills and tools. Here some helpful videos what and how to do. This guy has very interesting videos about Prius which is basically the same car. 
Good luck. 👍

 

[pateviko]

Thank you @TonyHSD. I will call Toyota tomorrow and schedule a full EGR system cleaning. 

Elena

[pateviko]

Hello @TonyHSD, we brought the car to Toyota and asked them to service the EGR system. They said that the EGR system would have been a good guess for the source of the problem, except it is only a problem for diesel engines. The car has a gasoline engine. The car is still with them. They are trying to diagnose the issue. 

The new bit of information is that my husband was not able to replicate the issue for the first time, and the only difference is that the weather was colder than usual. Before yesterday, he had always been able to replicate the problem quickly. It was snowing, and usually, it does not snow or get very cold where we live. 

[TonyHSD]

12 minutes ago, pateviko said:

Hello @TonyHSD, we brought the car to Toyota and asked them to service the EGR system. They said that the EGR system would have been a good guess for the source of the problem, except it is only a problem for diesel engines. The car has a gasoline engine. The car is still with them. They are trying to diagnose the issue. 

The new bit of information is that my husband was not able to replicate the issue for the first time, and the only difference is that the weather was colder than usual. Before yesterday, he had always been able to replicate the problem quickly. It was snowing, and usually, it does not snow or get very cold where we live. 

Well if there is another reason why your car creates this knocking noise is either from faulty injectors, moisture in the intake manifold, coolant inside cylinders which will indicate an issue with the head gasket. 
All Toyota hybrids gen3 including your Auris hybrid need egr system cleaning procedure at around 100k miles due to its design and how the system functions. Toyota BG mechanics might not be aware or been trained for but in reality this is very important to be done to preserve the engine and extend its life. 
I can tell you a couple of ways how to replicate the knocking sound: 

1. Start the car from cold and only run the engine for few minutes, turn the car off and leave it for 20 min, start again and you will have the knocking return. - this can indicate 3 things; egr, injectors or moisture 

2. Start and drive the car as usual, select ev mode and continue driving until hybrid Battery is low and the system exits ev mode , the engine will start to recharge the Battery and at this point start driving the car and accelerate moderate to around 15-20mph 20-30km/h and release accelerator same as you are approaching a speed bump at this moment while your engine is loaded and immediately unloaded it will start knocking violently, this is how you know it’s from the egr. 
I have experienced exactly this knocking two years ago when my car was at 136000 miles and after researching I came to a conclusion that this is the problem. I booked an appointment to my local Toyota dealer and technician advised the same, to clean the egr , egr cooler, pipe and manifold. I had done that as been told and the car been great ever since. If Toyota doesn’t want to clean the egr you ,any need to find another independent mechanic who understands these cars and can do it for you or your husband as diy project. 
Most important things to be cleaned are intake manifold small openings, egr valve, egr pipe. Here from Toyota technician from USA an example video. 

Let Toyota diagnose the issue first and see what they will say, then let me know. One more tip if they only remove the egr pipe and look inside if it’s dirty means the whole system is dirty and requires cleaning, but I am positive that this needs to be done at that mileage and age. 

[TonyHSD]

Here also pictures of my egr work on my Auris hybrid. This circled with red is what they need to clean. You can show to the mechanics and tell them that petrol egr gets as dirty as diesels 👍
 

[flash22]

Due to the mileage, the first thing i would do is the plugs they only like Denso plugs, the egr and intake is quite a lot of work, the main dealer will want to throw parts at it rather than clean it = large bill

A simple diagnostic would be to unplug (electrical) the egr what will throw a code but if the fault goes you know what the issue is

[pateviko]

The Toyota dealership have had the car for two days and are not further diagnosing the problem because they can not replicate the issue. They refuse to check the EGR system saying that they need to catch the noise in the act with the testing machine first. 😞 

[TonyHSD]

57 minutes ago, pateviko said:

The Toyota dealership have had the car for two days and are not further diagnosing the problem because they can not replicate the issue. They refuse to check the EGR system saying that they need to catch the noise in the act with the testing machine first. 😞 

You probably need to find independent Toyota specialist or someone who understand these cars. Someone who knows about Japanese cars and happy to work on yours. The problem that you have is that hybrids are not that popular in your country and they just started to be interesting to most people, majority there will say diesels are better 😂😉, same was the case in uk back in 2012-2015 and thanks to some private hire companies like Ecoigo, west one, Addison Lee and then Uber who made these cars popular, now in uk it’s norm when you are talking about Toyota means we are talking about hybrids, as everyone knows that Toyota makes the best and only real hybrids. There should be some garages that can help. It’s an easy job but also a time consuming, took me 2 days to me taking parts off , cleaning and putting all back together. The Only new parts you will need are that orange gasket for the manifold and the part that I circled on the engine block, metal part called pcv valve. Actually anyone who works on diesels egr can do your one too, but never agreed on offers to cancel egr, or removed , or add anything that it’s not original to the car. I can also talk to your Toyota mechanic and explain to them what they need to do, but I am not sure they will like to do it. As Bob said, they will push you to change parts ,  expensive things.
Before in uk many dealers also did not recognise this egr problem and never offered cleaning service, but when I was in Toyota garage there were 3 Uber Priuses in the for that exact same reason, egr cleaning.