Prius (2004-09) :: Hybrid System Isn't Working Properly
Mar 11, 2013
I have a 2004 bought in 2003. It recently logged its first 100k miles. My problem with it is not easy to describe. It is actually running more like a non-hybrid car. I can feel and tell the hybrid system is operational, and I can hear the electric motor whine when coasting, down, etc. However, I don't think it is running as it should or as it used to. It happened on highway while cruising about 70 mph. I hit the accelerator to pass someone, and I felt that something changed. I'll try to describe it: think of a half-clogged pipe. The water can barely gets past the obstruction. You keep applying pressure, and suddenly the clog dissolves under pressure, and water begins to flow freely, and the pressure goes down. So it felt like that. Now the accelerator pedal is lighter, car is faster to respond, yet I think something is wrong because the car isn't itself anymore.
I don't like problems like these because they are very difficult to diagnose, let alone fix. For a while I also have not heard the inverter pump whine after shutting the car off as I did in the past, but the last time I got out of the car today I heard it. I believe it was replaced five years ago after a collision with a Trailblazer wiped out half of the front end ( but with no power train damage). I checked the VIN for the inverter pump campaign, but my VIN was not in the range.
Right now my problem is that the car feels a lot faster than it has ever been. When I lift off the accelerator, it doesn't begin to coast as it used to. No warning light of any kind out of the ordinary is present on the dash, although it did have the red triangle on during start up with a message about the parking gear not being engaged properly. That warning went away after the change in performance occurred. Related?
I guess I will take it to the dealer to see if there are any codes stored. After my 30 mile commute this morning, no whining, buzzing or any kind of noise was present after I shut off the car and I got out. There is still no warning light.
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Car was deemed a total loss. I didn't think the damage was too bad and one of my friends at a bodyshop told me to go ahead and do a car buy back that I can't go wrong with a prius. My mother said $20 gas a week. So I did and gave my mom the difference. The Car drives going forward and in reverse just find. Besides the body damage I got underneath the car and I see a bent tie rod end and maybe a lower control arm. The thing is when I hop inside to move the car I notice the car reads transaxle disengaged and battery system won't charge in neutral.
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Had this car for two years and I love it, but the central locking has been a bit glitchy since I bought it. Sometimes it works perfectly for weeks.
Sometimes it unlocks the driver door just fine, but a second click of the button won't open the other doors.
On a couple of occasions (today was the second time) it won't unlock any door. If I use the keyhole in the driver door to unlock that door, I have to hold the key to force the lock to stay up while I pull open the door with the other hand. If I let go of the key, it relocks itself.
After I manually unlocked and opened the driver door, I reached in and pressed the button on the console. It would not unlock the doors. This car has only one door keyhole, the one on the driver door. Locking always works on all doors, and it locks the doors itself as it should as I take off down the street.
When it is misbehaving, it misbehaves with either key and the console button does not work either, so I am pretty sure the problem not the transmitter.
If it always behaved as it did today, I would suspect that the microswitch in the driver door was shorting, and telling the system that the key was in the door and turned full right all the time. However, that would not explain why the usual failure is to open the driver door but not the others. Where is the receiver for the remote lock control?
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I am having an issue with my 2008 Ford Escape XLT. It seems that my A/C and Heater fan isnt working properly. Basically, air only comes out when i put the fan speed to 4. With 1-3, no air comes out. If the A/C or Heat is on, I can feel cold air or heat coming out but the actual fan isn't running. It only runs when it is set to 4. What the problem could be?
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I have a 2009 Prius base model, and I've been having two different brake problems.
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I have a 2009 Prius. Last summer I noticed that the outside temperature gauge was not working properly. I asked at the wonderful dealership I go to and no one knew anything.
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I thought my tranny shift points had gone a little nutty. This afternoon, it suddenly seemed as if it were starting off in 2nd gear...then the OD light started flashing. Now, when you put it in 1st gear manually, or reverse, it's like it's in park. Can't push the truck or anything...put it in drive or 2nd, and it starts off slowly. Once it picks up speed, all seems well. Definitely not starting off in 1st or going into reverse at all. Have y'all seen this problem before?
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When stuck in traffic jams, and my 2004 Prius shows 2 bars on the HV battery charge, it attempts to start the engine to maintain the charge on the HV battery. What was happening was the engine would attempt to start and then it would immediately die. It would keep repeating this process, over and over again, and would not charge the HV battery. Once I started driving out of the traffic jam, the engine ran fine and it charged up the HV battery while I was moving down the road. I decided to clean the throttle body. My charging problem did change due to me cleaning the throttle body. Instead of starting and immediately dying, over and over again, the engine no longer dies.
It now revs up, and slows back down to idle over and over again when sitting still with 2 bars of charge. The display does not show any charging going on during this revving up and slowing down episode. I need some more hints as to what to check out. I am studying electrical diagrams of the vehicle, but I need a synopsis of which system starts the engine for HV charging, and which system keeps the engine revving at the same RPMs during charging while not in motion. The throttle body cleaning made my 257 K mile Prius run like a scared deer again. I just need to get her charging while sitting still again. 12 volt charging system is in the 14+ volt range and 12 volt battery with no load is around 12.2 volts.
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I have had my T-Reg for 2 weeks now, and absolutely love it! However, there are some strange things I have found with the Nav System that are just a bit annoying.
1) Not all cities are on the CD. This is obvious - they can't put *all* the cities on, but there has been more than one occassion where the city I needed was not in there. For instance, I tried to find "Centerville, VA" but the Nav System only knew "Clifton, VA" (I guess they are the same), which ultimately became "Fairfax, VA." I didn't realize it was "Clifton" until I arrived there (following a map) and saw a sign.
2) There are two sections of major roads that I travel (Rte. 95 and Rte. 66) where the Nav system stops giving me directions to my destination. It tracks my position on the map as I am driving, so I know I have a fix on at least 3 satellites, but when I press the "i" button for my next cue, it says something like "Routing to your destination is not available from this location." The blue line on the display that shows where I should be going also is missing. Once I exit either of these major roads (in the areas that this occurs) the Nav System resumes guidance.
3) The map display on the Nav System is always "behind" by 10 or 15 seconds. When I cross a roadway, the map doesn't indicate my crossing until a good 10 or 15 seconds later, depending on my speed. The turn-by-turn display and voice prompts are *dead on*, it is just the map that isn't.
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We spend summers away and our 06 Prius stays in the garage. I connect a battery minder and it keeps the 12v battery charged with no problem. I also turn off the switch under the steering column that works with the remote.
When I started the car after two months and driving for a few blocks, I noticed the MFD showed the battery at a low of two purple lines. After a while, it charges up normally. The car has 47000 miles and the 12 v battery has never been changed. Would that have something to do with it or am I being concerned over nothing?
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My wife just called and said this light came on. She said when it came on the car turned off its cruise control but kept running. Now she says it seems to be running fine but the light is coming on.
The car has around 110k miles and I just replaced the spark plugs, air filter and engine oil about 1k miles ago. What it could be? I'm going to have her pull codes at the auto parts store but she needs to do about 20-30 miles of driving today for work. Is it safe for her to do so?
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Last year I literally replaced the entire A/C system in my 93 F150. (The compressor, the hoses and the evaporator were leaking and I toyed with converting it to 134A so I went ahead and replaced the condenser and all the rest of the parts. I ended up putting R12 back in it since I have a tank.)
I replaced everything, added oil, pulled a vacuum, leak tested it, and charged it back with 2.75 lbs of R12. The A/C worked then (and now) but it was not really cold. I got busy and did not have time to trouble shoot it until this weekend and the pressures and clutch cycle times were withing spec according to the repair manual - air was in the low 90's so the clutch was on constantly, low side pressure in the low 40s and high side in the 180s. The inside center vent air temperature never got below 60 after about a half hour of running on max. It eventually gets the inside temperature cool but not very quickly and certainly not enough to make me take it off high.
I thought maybe the blend door was not closing so I took the glove box apart and can hear the blend door slamming in both the full cold and full hot positions so unless the door has a hole in it or there is some other path around the heater core, I don't think this is the problem. I also double checked the orifice tube and I had used the blue one that again the repair manual calls for. What could be keeping the A/C from working???
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My hybrid system warning light came on last night in my 2005 Prius with about 89,000 miles. The car may have run out of gas (I wasn't driving). This car will only take about 8.5 gallons when the fuel light starts flashing. I started it this morning, light was still on, only 2 bars on battery, my car usually runs near the green, and the gas engine stalled after about 30 seconds. The gas indicator was flashing, so I added a 1/2 gallon I had at the house, and unplugged the 12v for about 10 minutes to clear the system. Upon restarting, fuel light was still flashing, but no hybrid warning light. Drove a few miles, filled up with gas, and drove another mile.
So my question, could running out of gas and driving a very short distance (light came on as my wife turned into our driveway), cause this warning light to come on? If so, will there be any lasting effects? Did unplugging the 12v battery clear the computer codes, or can I still get these read to learn more about what happened?
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I have a 2005 Prius with 135k miles. Yesterday the red exclamation light came on and also the hybrid system warning light. I shut the car off and it came on again. The third time the car started normally and it is driving normally today with no warnings. Does this sound like the 12 volt battery? It is original.
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How do you know if the inverter coolant pump/reservoir is bad after the recall was performed?Since it doesn't produce any codes but can reduce the electric-drive if getting too hot, how do you convince Toyota to give it a second look?
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I have been having some hybrid battery issues. My prius is a 2006 with 198,000 miles. The original battery was replaced at around 120,000 with a junkyard battery. About a year later that battery gave up the ghost and I decided to rebuild that battery. So far that has worked quite well until recently.
My troubles started a couple weeks ago when I got the Red triangle and all the dash lights and the hybrid system icon on the MFD. Naturally I thought it was the battery again. Took it out and checked the voltages of the modules. All the modules where within tolerances. I grabbed a OBDII scanner and checked the code. It was telling me that the Hybrid current sensor was bad. I changed that out with the wiring harness from the old battery.
That lasted for a few days before the red triangle came back. I checked the code and it was indicating one of the blocks was bad. I think P3019. So I took the battery back out and replaced that block with other modules. Almost instantaneously the red triangle came back with two more bad blocks. I think it was P3012 and P3022. So I took the battery out once more and tested all the voltages of all the modules. Everything was 7.86-7.9v. So I decided to start the rebalance of the existing modules in hopes to find some bad modules.
I also bought a new 12v battery and installed that. I got everything back together and took it for a road test. It took about 30 mins before the triangle came back. I grabbed the codes and it was still indicating bad blocks. P3011 and P3018. I am a little at a loss.
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During a highway trip three months ago, my 2004 Prius suddenly lost engine power, the red triangle Master Warning light came on accompanied by a warning sound, and then the Hybrid System Warning sign appeared on the Multifunction Display. I pulled off to the side of the road and stopped. I turned the car off and then tried turning it on again. Engine power was restored although the warning lights remained. We took a chance and carried on with our trip. The same sequence of events reoccurred about 10 times on our 1,300 km journey. I took the car to a Toyota dealer where they found a C2318 DTC. They checked the battery and the HEV fuse but could not locate the problem.
We returned home and on the way the same thing happened a few more times. My service manual noted that the description for C2318 is Low Voltage Error (Power Supply Malfunction) and the trouble areas are HEV fuse, IGCT relay, Wire harness or connector, or Auxiliary battery. Since the car was nearly 7 years old I thought I had nothing to lose by replacing the battery, which I did. However, on a short 150 km trip last week the problem appeared again, once while approaching our destination and once when we were almost home. There seems to be a pattern in that the problem appears every 150 km or so of highway driving. It has never done it while driving in the city.
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I have a 2008 Prius with 106,000+ miles on it. It was running fine till 2 days ago, I didn't start it yesterday and today when i went to start it, I get the Hybrid System Malfunction light, along with check engine, the red triangle and TPMS light. The gas engine tries to start up, then 1 second later makes a grinding noise and turns off.
I am in Toronto and its cold, but not THAT cold yet. So I am doubtful its temperature related. I checked the fluids and they all seem to be sufficient (engine oil, radiator fluid, power steering fluid). I didn't notice any leaks under the vehicle either.
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A few days ago I was driving my 2005 Prius aggressively up a mountain road and all at once the hybrid system warning light, the triangle with the exclamation point, and the regenerative brake system warning lights came on.
After about 2 minutes parked, I restarted the car and the regenerative brake system warning light went off, but the other two were still on. I still drove it twenty miles home, over another substantial mountain gap (about 1000 ft up and another 1500 down), without any problems.
I checked the voltage of the 12v battery, which seemed to be on the low end, but OK. (I think the lowest reading was 11.9). There seemed also to be some turbulence in the inverter coolant reservoir.
I brought it into the electronic vehicle specialist in town here today, who pulled my codes and said that the hybrid battery was dead.
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I haven’t been on these boards very often since getting my used 2008 Prius because until now it has been very kind to me in terms of not needing mechanical repairs. Unfortunately that good streak seems to have come to an end. Driving home Monday evening (after ~30min freeway driving), my master system warning light came on, accompanied by the hybrid system warning light. I didn’t know what the latter was – had to look it up – but I immediately pulled to the shoulder. The car was driving normally, however. Since shops and dealers were closed for the evening, after much debate I ended up having the car towed to a family friend’s body shop; they were still there and had a scanner to check the error codes for me. My car was on the side of the freeway for well over an hour with hazard lights on and the dome light on and off occasionally as we got in and out of the car. By the time the tow truck arrived, I discovered that the 12V battery seemed dead; car wouldn’t boot up all the way, wouldn’t shift to neutral and didn’t want to power down – I had to try turning it off upwards of 10 times. I was surprised, given just the hazard light and limited dome light usage. We jumped it, got it in neutral and on the truck.
At the body shop, they said there were no error codes related to the hybrid battery; something about transmission that wasn’t clarified, and errors for low voltage on the 12V battery. With everything off, it measured 10-something V; something higher when turned on, but they believed the problem was a dead 12V battery. I was surprised that it would suddenly give out in the middle of driving, but we went ahead and replaced it the next day. I picked up the car Tues evening, and had no problems driving it home, to work the next morning. Unfortunately, during my drive home – strangely at almost exactly the same location as the first time – the same hybrid system warning light came back on. I’d driving about 70 miles with it off at this point before the reappearance. This time I didn’t pull over to the side (had enough of that before) but rather drove a few more miles to a parking lot where the car has now stayed overnight. I note that the car seemed to drive perfectly normally during that time; no loss of power.
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I have a 2005, I purchased new in 2005. I now have around 120,000 miles and have had no problems - just oil changes and new tires.
I was driving on the interstate in MS and all of a sudden all these lights come on on my dash including the triangle that means take it to your dealer immediately. The car sounded funny acted funny and accelerated funny. I was closer to home so I came home and called the dealer. They said to drive it in but if it started acting up to pull over and they would come get me.
When I cranked it, it sounded like I was pushing the accelerator but I wasn't so I cut it off then cranked it again. I drove it very slowly cause it was acting weird.
I drove it home to discuss it with my husband and to do some on-line research here. So 2 - 3 weeks later my husband decides to look at it and by now the little battery is dead - it is the original battery too -btw. So I bought a new toyota battery (the little one). My husband hooked it up to see if the car would crank. It did but all the lights on the dash lite up again including a couple new ones!
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