Does the engine turn on and off frequently lead to a lower engine life? I have always heard that the biggest wear on an engine happens when it is turned on. If the oil is draining from the Prius engine each time stops it seems like there would be a lot of engine wear.
Does the Prius (2010) engine have some way of keeping the engine lubricated when it is turned off?
I have posted separately about my 'supposed' dead HV dead battery. The charge was down to one bar and the the system didn't allow ICE to start for recharge. I finally got a reading of a about 207 volts today and when I fiddled with the start button on and off a few time today, the ICE started. After about 15 sec.
It indicated it was pumping juice into the battery. When it finally got up to about 4 bars it turned off. I had to move the car off the tow dolly (it's home for the past week) and did so in electric mode even though there was a Ready on the display the engine never came on. Before maneuvering it around much I tried to get the ICE to start again to recharge the battery, now down to 2 bars.
By pressing the gas in park and neutral, it would start and rev up but never generated any power to the battery. Fiddled around with the power button some on/off/on, etc. until I got the ready light and sometimes it would start charging but only once did it charge to 6 bars and usually stopped as soon as there were 4 bars.
I've noticed and been experimenting the past 2 days with something strange, at least strange to me. Leaving work each day, I have about 4.5-5 miles of minor down hill grade. It always aggravates me that I can't truly glide on most of this slope because the ICE motor is warming up.
Yesterday I was watching the Eco meter/bar as I was coasting to the first of 2 sharp (15MPH) 90 degree turns, and noticed that as I applied the brakes, the ICE must have turned off because the MPG meter shot up to the top of the scale.
Normally, I'll accelerate to 35-40 MPH, release the throttle and watch the ECO bar go into the charge section of the gage as the MPG meter goes into the 90-100 range. I slowly depress the accelerator, to move the bar back toward the neutral/glide position and as I do, the MPG meter slowly drops to around 40-50 and continues to drop as the speed slowly bleeds off. But as I said, yesterday as I applied the brakes, I noticed the meter went shooting to 100.
So today I played with it and not only was I able to get the ICE to turn off at each of the sharp turns, but after accelerating, as I was going straight after the second turn, I was able to get the ICE to turn off by braking while still keeping the throttle depressed to maintain 35 MPH.
Now I don't have any extra meters to tell me what the engine temp was, so I don't know what stage of warm up the motor was in, but I can tell you that outside temp was about 65, the first turn is about 90 seconds (1/2 mile plus parking lot congestion leaving the school) into my journey and the second turn exactly 1/2 mile on down the road (35 speed limit). Without using the braking trick, my motor will not shut off for gliding until about 6-8 minutes or 2.5-3.5 miles into my drive.
Trick to turn off the ICE? I was able to raise my overall MPG for the 23 mile round trip from 63+ to 64+ MPG today by being able to actually do serious gliding in those first 3 miles.
I always take care of my car oil changes on time. And in the last week my check engine light turned on for a few hours then turned off. And today it turned on again. I kinda regret getting rid of my scan gauge now.
View 11 RepliesSo, I noticed after the week long heatwave (using Priidash and the Prius display) that during normal driving (under 65mph and slow accel) that my prius is NOT keeping the battery at 60% SOC....It is staying in the low 50's or as low as 39.5%....If I go above 70mph, I see the battery being drained and not recharged at all....I reset the battery (twice) the first time it made no difference but the second time the car turned on and said I had 60% SOC when in reality before the ECU reset I was at 49.5%. I know my battery is good because I have stress tested it many times. Its in great shape. The only thing I've done differently these past few weeks is I left the car in Park with the AC on 75 auto for about 5hrs on 4 different days....Its a 2004 Prius.
View 7 RepliesI have had to disarm my alarm system in my 2003 Impala (done via the radio) due to what appears to be a flaw in the system. It is telling my car I am trying to steal it and thus it won't start. As soon as I turned the "alarm" system off the car started right up. From my research this seems to be a consistant issue with this car. My question is by switching off the alarm system, am I doing any long term/short term damage to the computer system/car? I have a scheduled appointment for later this week with the dealership, but from what I have read on line (going back to 2007) the car maker is aware of this glitch and has not been responsive in fixing it without being paid. I bought a warranty when I got the car back in Dec of last year, but not sure if something like this would fall under it's coverage. If just keeping the alarm system turned off allows me to start and drive my car without damage, unless they plan on fixing the glitch for free I can't see spending the hundreds of dollars I am reading it will take to fix it.
View 19 RepliesWhen I drive the PiP in EV Boost mode, the gas engine rpm stays very low, so is the engine sound. It sounds like it is just idling since it revs at 1,000 rpm.
When I am going 75 mph, the engine revs at very low rpm and I had a hard time keeping it below 80 mph. My mind is tricked into believing I am going slower than the actual speed. I think I am using the sound of the engine to judge the speed or something.
It felt like I am driving a different car, one with two more cylinders.
EV Boost is when you are in EV and go above 65 mph. ICE comes on and blend gas with electricity.
Is it just me? What are your experience in the EV Boost / Blended mode?
I am having heat issues with my 2004 Prius. Recently it has been difficult for the defroster to keep the windshield clear and the heat output is clearly not normal. It's chilly here in Vermont so having heater is important. I have been doing some reading in this forum and have gained some insight into how the heating system works.
One observation I notice is that the radiator does not seem to get hot at all. If I open the cap on clear overfill tank under the hood it appears to be full. In fact the coolant seems to be circulating through this tank. If I dunk my finger into the fluid it is only warm. There is a warning about not opening when hot but it is not hot so I can open it.
As I sit in the car I can hear liquid circulating through in the dash board area. When I change heater setting to enable different vents and defrost each change produces sounds that would make me believe the mechanical things are working ok. It's just not very warm.
Bought my daughter a used 05 prius. So far had had to repair the MFD, ac blower, 12v battery.
The engine light, red car light, the triangle light turned on. We replaced the 12v battery since we didn't know if it had ever been replaced. Drive the car for about 5 minutes, then all the red lights reappeared followed by not being able to accelerate. Immediately drove back home. First looked up the acceleration problem and it says to check engine coolant levels.
Low and behold the reservoir was empty. Purchased some, added it and drove around the neighborhood. The acceleration problem gone! Engine lights gone! Just as I am getting home, the dash lights disappear and the engine light only is lit, and red car on MFD. I drove it to our mechanic for error codes. It drove perfectly. As i go to turn off car, it wont turn off. It took another 5 minutes of power button holding, brake release and parking holding. It finally turns off.
While my car was idling in a CVS parking lot, the VCS, Red Exclamation in a triangle, Yellow Exclamation in a circle and the check engine lights all suddenly turned on.
In reading the forums, it seems the two most likely issues would either be the inverter pump (which I had replaced as part of the recall, and I see the fluid moving in the reservoir), or possibly a bad 12v battery (which I had replaced last year with the forum recommended Optima Yellow Top).
I checked for error codes, and there were numerous ones there at first, but I think that might have been related to the old 12v battery dying (I never reset after that). I cleared the codes, and no new codes are generating.
This morning I started my 2008 Prius (approx. 31k miles) and found the big red triangle with an exclamation mark and check engine light turned on.
I drove my car <1 mile to a smog check station where they ran a diagnostic on it and came back with the P0A9C code.
A quick internet search turns up that this is "HYBRID BATTERY TEMPERATURE SENSOR "A" RANGE/PERFORMANCE."
I have a 200t and was wondering if there was any way that you can turn off the car's engine, but keep the electronics running. Right now when I put it on park and i press the engine on/off button itll turn off all my electronics.
View 1 RepliesI have seen several posts recommending Costal Tech's mod to keep one of the aux power sockets ("cigarette lighter") live. However, this does not work for the 2010 Prius (works only until 2009). How to make the cigarette lighter live even when the car is turner OFF?
View 19 RepliesI've been having a few problems with keeping my ipod connected with Entune. I was working fine but lately the ipod screen keeps saying loading. Then when I switch to another source like FM, then back to Ipod, I also get a "Function not available" screen. The only thing that has fixes this is to hard reboot my ipod, and turn off the car and restart.
View 1 RepliesIs there any way to keep the front white LED lights on with the driving lights?
View 4 RepliesThe Volt has a mode called "mountain" that keeps the battery at least 40% full at all times. Does the Prius Plugin have a mode to keep its EV-mode battery a minimum percentage?
View 19 Replies'15 Persona, should I keep the tire pressure higher during winter? I normally keep it at 33 front 32 rear, like the sticker on the door shows.
View 5 RepliesIt was about 40 degrees this morning when i started. the engine turned on and the whole front of the car was shaking. it was quite loud and then slowly went away when it warmed up. Is this normal? it gets much colder weather, so I'm concerned.
View 17 RepliesWhenever we come home at night, the headlights remain on for some period of time and then eventually shut off. Last night we came home and turned the car off but I was unloading for about 20 minutes and the headlamps never shut off. The only difference I can tell is that I had a door open the entire time while unloading. The only way to shut them off was to move the headlamp setting from AUTO to off. But when I cycled it back to AUTO, the lights didn't come back on. GX is normally driven with headlamp switch in AUTO mode.
Is there a way to change this setting? It's really annoying and unnecessary to leave the lights on for so long.
Further investigation I figured it was the the flap opening and closing. Whenever I push the recirculate button to open and close the vent it squeals. Is there a way I can lubricate the vent?
View 7 RepliesYesterday the passenger side tie rod came apart on my 2005 Prius while I was pulling out of a parking lot and my tire turned sideways. It looked like it unthreaded itself. Lucky I wasn't on a freeway.
View 3 Replies