Prius (2004-09) :: Severe Power Loss On Hill Climb - Traction Battery Loses Charge Quickly
Jun 26, 2013
My 2007 Prius has 120,000 miles. I live in a mountainous area. I need to climb 3 miles at 6% grade to get out of my neighborhood. Lately I've been noticing the traction battery loses charge fairly quickly and I've been thinking about replacing the battery. Much of my driving is in steep hills and I run a full charge cycle many times a day, so I guess I should expect some loss of life.
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A few days ago I posted a thread about losing power on a steep hill climb with a cold engine. I replaced the hybrid battery and all seemed well. A few days later, the problem occurred again--bummer. (The car has 120K miles and has spent most of its life in a hot and mountainous environment, and I knew the hybrid battery was failing, so that's not a problem.)
The car starts the climb OK, gains a few hundred feet in elevation, still has some charge left in the hybrid battery, then loses power, surges a couple of times, then comes to stop. The engine continues to run at idle and I get no warning or check engine lights. The "ready" light stays on. This time, the second time it happened, I turned off the car, turned it back on again immediately, and all was well. The remainder of the 1000' climb went fine. As did several other similar climbs on the same drive. Since then I've climbed this hill with a cold engine without a problem, so it's intermittent.
I hesitate to pay Toyota for a code scan since the check engine light did not come on. Should I do this anyway? My local auto parts store will scan for free, but I know that their scanner will not read Toyota-specific codes, just industry standards.
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I see this was discussed back in 06 but not resolved. Maybe more owners have had additional experiences with this.
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I go over a mountain pass, to and from work. It is about a two mile up and down incline/decline. On several occasions while going up the pass,the gas motor has rapidly accelerated at a high rpm. I back off the gas pedal and check the 'battery indicator bars' and there are none. I then drive very slowly to the top of the pass and the batteries quickly recharge on the decline to a color of all light green bars, indicating a full charge. Same experience coming home. Once I do normal town driving, the bars settle around 'four or five blue bars.' Local dealer says there is on problem. I am driving at 55 mph when this happens.
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The symptoms are: HV Battery loses almost all charge over night. Sometimes it won't start. HV battery loses charge fast while cruising in the city (I used to see it getting green at the highways with cruise control and now it doesn't happen). Red warning light goes on randomly.
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I have a 2005 Prius with about 170,000 km on it. I bought it two years ago used at 150,000 km. Everything worked fine for about 8 months, them I noticed the main battery started to drain on first start in the morning after driving a short distance. It would drop down to about 2-3 bars most days, especially on cold mornings. After reading on this forum for a bit I turned off the key locator, and it went back to normal for about 6 months, at which point it started dropping again. I haven't had any warning lights come on yet.
I replaced the 12 V battery, as recommended here with an Optima Yellow Top, even though the original one showed no voltage drop. It actually tested higher than the new Yellow Top I got. My fear is that the traction battery is losing modules. I'm planning on testing them soon.
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A month ago I bought a 2007 Prius with 140,000 km. I notice that the state of charge drops into the 'red' bars within about 20 minutes of the car switched on, in Park with no accessories running. A mechanic connected his diagnostic computer and saw 2 cells are low. However, the mechanic informs me there is no value in replacing those cells as others are likely to go down, thereafter. Is there anything I can do to avoid having to replace the entire traction battery?
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I don't plug my PiP in often due to the cost of electricity here, but what I have noticed that when it has a full charge, around 13Miles, it will quickly drop down to 7-8, even when not using EV. Meaning, I start up car, turn off EV and the motor gets warm. Engine shuts off and I drive normally using the ICE. Over the course of a few miles, I'd say about 10, that EV range slowly drops down to 7-8 and then maintains itself around there. Pretty much the whole time I would have been using the ICE to maintain ~70MPH on the highway, not climbing, just flat.
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Took my C to the local drive through car wash as it was pretty crusty looking from all of the rain we've had lately. I had my A/C on as its a nice and warm sunny Florida day. Pulled inside and put my C in Neutral to go through the wash and half way through my car started beeping like mad and flashing the "!" in a triangle symbol and on the small screen it said something to the effect of "Cannot charge traction battery when car is in 'N'." My HVAC system drained down the traction battery and since the car was in neutral the engine couldn't keep it above the minimum SOC level. Turned the air off and anxiously waited for the car wash to hurry up so I could put it in drive. After I put the car in drive the SOC read 1 blue bar and took FOREVER to charge back (or perhaps it just seemed that way because I was freaking out..)
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I know car likes to shut off at 3-4 bar, but what if I want to keep the battery closer to full in order to get more power. Is there any way to tell the computer to keep engine running?
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I've noticed that after sitting over night my battery for the hybrid system is not charged enough to operate the car in EV or for the first mile or two it does not seem to use as much electric power to supplement the car. After a couple miles it is charged or near charged and I see more use.
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On a hot sunny day, occasionally I have to be stopped for extended periods with the A/C running which means the engine will come on for a few minutes out of every 10 minutes or so. to charge the traction battery. Engine comes on at 2 bars and goes off at 3 bars.
As engine efficiency at idle is low, would it be better to put it in D with the brake firmly pressed and push the accelerator so that the engine speed is in the high efficiency range so as to produce more charge for the fuel burnt and maybe also I could charge it to a few more bars on the battery indicator?
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I have a 1997 Volvo 850 where the battery slowly loses its charge. We don't drive it much so every two weeks it has to be trickly charged.
I have determined that there is a drain of 150 mA. When removing fuse 15, it drops to a drain of 50-60 mA. When removing fuse 6 (central locking)(in conjunction with 15) it drops to a drain of 10 mA. I can live with a drain of 10 mA
I don't mind removing fuse 15 as it is not critical. However, with the fuse removed, it makes a beeping noise - like the indicator when a door is open. IS THERE A SIMPLE WAY TO STOP THE BEEPING?
I understand that there is an electrical issue but not sure I want to spend a lot of money to fix it. I am not very mechanically inclined and I have a feeling it could cost a lot to fix this.
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I have a Prius 2005 with an Engineer 4kwh kit installed [v4 bms]. Lately, I have experienced several instances where the Prius suddenly looses much of it's traction power and the engine races, and the red triangle and engine service lights go on at the dashboard. This happens with the kit turned on, and often after a few kit on/off cycles to get more ev mode. The Prius battery is sometimes low, sometimes not, when this happens. Not sure if it also occurs with the kit off.
The Prius seems to retain some traction power up-down by the throttle pedal, but most power goes missing. On the other hand the engine races and does not seem to power the wheels or vary by throttle. When I pull off the road using brakes normally, and turn off the car/engine and restart [kit now off], the car seems to reset and can resume driving normally, but the error code lights [triangle-engine] lights stay on.
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I've a 01 elantra its a 2 litre tubro diesel. There is no power in the engine even to climb a small hill...
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My 2013 Avalon Limited was purchased in Dec 2012. It is my 3rd one - have always loved them. But THIS one has been a disappointment. It seems that every 10k miles the battery completely loses its charge and the battery must be completely replaced or fully charged - RIDICULOUS. I only have 30k miles on it! Is this a known issue with Toyota? I have gone from feeling completely confident in my car to not knowing whether it will start up when I need it!
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I recently got my 2007 Prius back from the body shop after a 13k repair following a crash that crumpled my front end. The car seemed to be doing fine, until a long, steep climb had the battery drop to one bar, speed dropping to 40 despite a floored accelerator, and a red triangle that appeared briefly before disappearing just as we completed the climb. It's the dropping speed despite a floored accelerator and the warning light that have me worried.
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I have a 2009 Prius with about 33,000 miles. Owned it about 6 months. It has the original Goodyear tires. I notice that when I do a quick turn, or go over a bump or something like that, I will have a quick moment of "squeal", which I imagine means a little loss of traction.
Is this an indication that my tires are ready for replacement? They still have a reasonable amount of tread. Or is this simply characteristic of this vehicle? Or might it indicate some other problem?
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I recently purchased a used 2007 prius. The car has not been driven for some time. I won it in an auction from a used/wreaked car lot and am in the process of fixing it up. I need to know if it is possible to charge the hybrid battery when the car is idling or will this only discharge the hybrid battery and if so, is there any way to charge the hybrid battery other than driving the car?
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I have a problem I can't figure out. 06 Prius with 105k.
Current codes: P3000, P3020, C1259, C1310, C1378
Car will run and drive but is in limp mode
HV battery fan is at full blast, but charge does not fluctuate
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I just purchased a 2004 Prius. When I am driving the battery seems to work fine but yet the battery loses charge when I am sitting in the car while running on idle. The battery goes down to 2 bars and the engine has to kick in to charge the battery. I have no check engine lights. Does this mean my battery needs to be replaced? If so then what are your thought on rebuilt batteries.
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