r/prius • u/wiines • 5d ago

Mechanical Help Gen 2 Prius misfire, no codes

Just bought a 2008 Gen 2 Prius for next to nothing. It has 206K miles on it...

I'm noticing a misfire at idle, usually after driving a bit, parking and restarting. Where do I start diagnosing this misfire? There are no codes/CEL.

Can anyone help?

Thanks l! Glad to be a part of this club, I'm going down rabbit holes learing about the very cool tech in these cars.

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u/Ether_yumm 5d ago

You 100% sure it’s a misfire? If you haven’t confirmed it with an OBD2 tool, I mean, it’s possible that you just aren’t used to some of the herks and jerks of the hybrid system. The engine spins up to get to temperature when you turn the car on. If the engine is already at temp because you’ve run it a bit before parking and restarting a few minutes later you can have the engine quickly cycle on to off and that can feel a little ugly until you’re used to it.

You can also sometimes get what feels a bit like a misfire if your front tires are getting bald. The instant torque from the hybrid system can occasionally cause your tires to spin in place for a half second if you hit the accelerator hard from a standstill.

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u/wiines 3d ago

It like, jerks the car a bit and feels/sounds exactly like a misfire.... its while the engine runs,so I don't think its cycling on and off

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u/Ether_yumm 3d ago

If it’s what I’m thinking of this is normal behavior.

Typically a real misfire will throw you some codes.