There should be a recall on this, since so many other Third Generation Prius owners have had this same problem. My mechanic says he is working on two others before me, and that he has had several others in the past few years. He says that it is a common occurrence between 200,000 and 250,000 miles. I have also read Toyota forums where people are complaining about this issue. In addition, I have personally met various ride-share drivers who have had to deal with this issue too. We need a class action lawsuit to deal with this.

The first signs of a blown head gasket have to do with an engine knocking sound, lower radiator water levels, warning lights, codes: P0301 or P0300. Poor engine performance, i.e. horsepower and mileage. If people do not address this issue immediately, it can ruin the engine and will need to be replaced.

I put this complaint also under "engine" so this is for head gasket. It's hard to separate out all of the charges because so much was done before they figured out that the ultimate problem was the broken head gasket. First I paid B & L Auto service for "diagnosing" -- $104.

They said I had to go to a dealer because all they were sure of was that the problem was "in the engine," and they don't work on Prius engines. $885 at Thayer Toyota in Bowling Green, Ohio, got me 4 spark plugs, ignition coil, replaced HVAC filter, replaced air filter element.

Tried to drive it, but same problem happened within a day. It wasn't bad enough for them to find it, so I drove it a couple more days so that the engine check light came back on.

For $1485 MORE, I got a replaced intake manifold, left rear wheel bearing, heat shield on the right back side. The car began rattling as I drove it our of the parking lot, but I told myself it was my nerves at fault, and in Toledo, I told myself it was the rough roads. When I pulled out of my first stop, I knew they had fixed NOTHING.

Now they want either $2500 to replace the head gasket and all that that entail, or another $5500 to replace my engine with a USED one.

I am so trapped! I would NEVER have spent this kind of money on my 157,000-mile, 10-year-old car.

The 2010 Prius apparently is having these issues at around 150,000 miles. The car salesman at Jim White Toyota warned me of this before I repaired anything (after the "It's in the engine and we don't work on them"), but the Thayer people (before they did anything) and the national Toyota Customer Service people flatly denied it.

Toyota has treated me very badly, all in all. I was one of the people that experience a sudden full-throttle acceleration as I tried to stop for a school bus. We'd thrown away a recall notice about floor mats since my husband (back when he was alive, so this is many years ago) looked at all our Priuses (we've bought four of these in all, plus one Camry) and said they were not interfering with the accelerator. (I had been unaware of the recall notice that seemed to be only about floor mats.)

I read they had to pay the U.S. Gov't for lying to Congress and to everybody else about this repeatedly: 1.2 BILLION dollars.

I thought that because of their damaged reputation and sales hit they took, they would never again lie about stuff and would take pains to do right by me.

In short, I was a fool.

Largest complaint on the 2010 Prius. First (which might be related) is a extremely loud knocking noise on cold start; I am aware it is normal for cars to start rough when it’s really cold - but never would I expect my Prius to sound like a diesel truck starting up. So now we’re just over the 163k mile warranty and BAM the car starts drinking oil. In the beginning I got the empty light (and dry dip stick) so I filled her up and took it in right away to make sure someone didn’t leave a filter loose. Everything checked out, so I asked them to do everything possible to clean the engine; ran me a few hundred bucks and number one cylinder antifreeze leak. Stay away from 2010 Prius.