My hybrid battery is shot and I do plan on rebuilding it when I can afford the cells. I was talking with Mike at xvipers.com yesterday and he said he could disable the hybrid system and make it run on the engine only for $40. He also says it will get 27mpg that way which is not bad. How one could do this?
View 19 RepliesLong time since I have posted anything here, but I noticed the fan running far more than normal here. Now the outside temp was fairly warm, but the most recent day I noticed it, the temps were only around 80-85 degrees out.
I usually don't run the AC in my car unless it is terribly hot out - so when I hear a fan running it stands out to me. It is very obvious that it is coming from the rear seat vent area.
The temps here have taken a dip (highs tomorrow are only about 70-75F), so I will keep an ear out for it to continue. Is this something to be concerned about? It is a 2010 Prius IV with about 32k miles...
After going through the Prius v manual, I just realized that there is no way to turn off traction control. Now, 99.9 % of the time, traction control is a good thing. But sometimes, it is useful to be able to turn it off.
View 15 RepliesSo I have searched about engine rattle/knock and I have found lots of results for cold starts but I haven't found it for the issue that I am having. I have a 2010 and anytime the battery is real low, around 2 bars and the ICE fires up to charge it, any time I give it a little throttle input, I get heavy valve rattling. It doesn't matter if its cold or hot, it does it as long as the battery is low. I never get this noise when battery is charged up, only when low. I have a link to the video below and you can see once I give it some input, it starts to sound like an old diesel tractor. Prius has close to 200K on the odometer and all my maintenance is up to date. Please turn the speakers up but the noise is right at 5 seconds in or so.
View 13 RepliesDoes traction control can be disabled on the C? I will be driving this car through the New England winter/ and just wanted to prepare myself for the worst possible scenario (ie not being able to make it up a slippery inclined road). I will be getting a set of winter tires which should work with the tire slip but doubt that will save me in all situations. I also was wondering how aggressive the traction control is compared to a GEN II or GEN III Prius. I was reading that the GEN III allowed more wheel slip compared to the GEN II which made it more drivable in the winter.
How to disable the stability/traction control.
These steps must be completed within 60 seconds.
Step 1: Set the ignition switch to ON, not READY. To do this press the power button two times, without pressing the brake pedal.
Step 2: While the transmission is still in park (P), fully press the gas pedal two times.
Step 3: Apply the parking brake to ensure that the vehicle will not move during this step. Put the transmission in neutral (N) and fully press the gas pedal two times.
Step 4: Put the transmission back in park (P) and fully press the gas pedal two times. The car will display "!Car!" in the upper left corner of the LCD screen.
How to disable traction control system on Prius 2002 ?
View 1 Replies2013 Prius is there any way to disable the traction control. Trying the push start button 2 times and push gas pedal 2 times etc. method wont work on this year.
View 6 RepliesWe're on our 3rd hybrid. Our new RX450h traction battery cooling fan under the back seat seems to run consistently after the car is driven for a few minutes. Our previous Prius and CT200h did not exhibit this. Is this typical of the 450h?
View 4 RepliesIf my traction battery has plenty of 'juice' in it, and my 12v battery is dead....is there any way to 'jump' the 12 volt battery with the traction battery to get the car started?
View 19 RepliesMy 2012 Prius v has a traction battery gauge beside the fuel gauge. The gauge has never shown that the battery is full. It appears as if the indicator is 2 bars below full at all times. Is this by design or should the gauge look full with bars to the very top after charging on a long trip?
View 5 Repliesup. Coolant temperature was high (160 F). Car was in low speed (5-10 mph because of traffic). Battery level was high (67.8% 7 pips).
But gas engine was still running non-stop.
Checked battery temperature. It was 28 F.
Switched from recirculating to fresh air mode. The battery temp raised from 28 F to around above 32 F rather quickly. Then the gas engine stopped and car started to run on full EV mode.
Did not know the fresh air mode will have such a prominent effect on battery temp...
Will use more fresh air mode in summer when the AC is blasting.
So this has happened to me a few times now in the cold temps. For my job I'm left to sit and idle every now and then after over an hour of driving.
I'll park my car, ICE will turn off, ICE temp at 195. Sit with heat on at 65 degrees. After about 10 minutes the engine temp will drop to about 110, which the ICE will start and warm up to about 135 and turn off. Hybrid battery stays above 55% and normally hits about 65% on every ICE start. (I have extra instrumentation installed to monitor)
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 rack up about 6 hours of daytime commute driving each week, and 6 hrs of night-time driving each week, in my 2009 Prius. That's 12 hours a week the low beam lights are used. I can't consider anything but the Basic sylvania headlights, as they are only rated for around 350 hours (like 9003BP), aand the premium bulbs are rated for much less. Is there any way to disable this daytime running feature? On my Corolla it is possible to ground a wire going to the daytime running module...the wire that becomes grounded when the parking brake is engaged. But the way Prius is all computerized, there may not be any discrete daytime running module.
View 3 RepliesWhile DRLs are great where you need them (northern countries, rainy places) some people don't want them on all the time. The Gen1 Prius (2001-2003) with Factory DRL's is a bit a pain to defeat. You cannot just pull a fuse or relay and the main DRL relay is a complicated unit that is burried far far under the dash.
View 2 Replies2010 gen III bought Aug 2009.
Would it be possible to disable HV battery charging or regeneration (with torque pro regen coop)? This way I could use battery and ICE power when going up a long mountainous area, and end up with 30% charge at the top instead of 60%. Then on the way down I could use regen to build back up the battery.
This is my first year driving my prius during a hot season, and for past 3 weeks my mpg has dropped from 49 to 41-43 mpg, and the reason is my traction battery keeps getting HOT! I can hear the battery cooling fan turning on constantly at max when i reach 20 mph, my car doesn't want to start in EV mode the engine just kicks in no matter how light you press the throttle, the EV motor is not assisting with the engine, the infamous slow rpm drop keep occurring and I when to touch the traction battery case and it its HOT, Ive open up the case to check for any dust on the fan and ducts but so far its spotless. I really wished they place an AC vent for the battery because the back passenger area with full A/C doesn't t get as cold as the front dose which doesn't cool off the battery.
View 19 RepliesI don't own a Prius, but my parents own two identical 2002 models (each with 120k miles).
My mother's car wasn't driven for nearly a month (hip replacement), and when they tried to start it last week, the ready light would blink 3 times - but no cranking.
After taking it to the dealer, they were quoted $4600 to replace the traction battery and ECU. We did the mandatory research on rebuilt batteries, but with only a vague diagnosis from the dealer, we were not convinced that this was the (only) problem.
So, my brother and I decided to swap the ECU, then the battery from my father's working Prius to my mother's - thereby proving the issue. Upon removing the 'dead' battery from mother's car, I decided to open the module, and check each battery. We measured anywhere from 3.0 to 6.4V on the individual cells - and 7.0V to 11V on the paired cells. It was clear that the batteries had discharged unevenly. The total charge remaining was about 151V - still above the 40% SOC minimum I'd read about.
We then bought 5 x 10A chargers from Walmart, and connected each to a pair of modules. Set the charge to rapid (10A) and waited 30 minutes (or until the charger indicated full). After 2 hours, all 19 pair were charged fully - with each reporting 15.7V +/- 0.5V. The total power was about 295V.
We reassembled the battery, re-installed it, and the car started immediately. We let it sit running, until it cycled off on its own. About 5 min later, the ICE fired again to charge the 12V battery - but it threw a P3006 error code. It showed a PS + MAIN + battery icon on the MFD. Using an OBDII scan tool, we cleared the error, and drove the car for a few miles. The error code did not return during that drive - but did one more time after letting it cycle off/on automatically. After clearing the code a second time, it never repeated again.
My assumption is that the 300V HV charge was above the 80% SOC and it didn't like that. But after a few cranking cycles, and the tendency for the battery to discharge back to it's rated output, the error no longer repeated.
Over the last few weeks I have noted the following when I first start the car in the morning : I turn on the car, and turn on the A/C (this is Arkansas, remember, and the sun has already heated the car up pretty good). The Traction Battery is usually at 6 bar+/-
Over the next few minutes (driving uphill, maybe stopping for a minute to put trash in our trash cans, A/C on all the time), the Traction Battery goes down to 2 or 3 bars quickly. Then over the next few minutes it pretty quickly comes back up as I start driving faster (40-45) on a main road.
I am guessing this is happening now because of my A/C use. But I don't remember this happening so much in previous summers, which were at least as hot.
BTW, I start driving as quickly as possible after turning the car on (little or no warm up). So maybe some of this has to do with the car using battery energy while the engine is warming itself. But again, I never noticed this before.
Is it possible that a cell or something in the battery is going bad? Or is it just completely normal and I just never noticed it before and I'm having Traction Battery Paranoia?
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..)
View 17 RepliesPurchased a second traction battery and installed it in parallel with the existing battery? Perhaps one from a wrecked Prius.
I'm thinking that would double the Ev range, which would be very handy in my current commute due to long term construction on one of the highways I use. I am in sub-5 mph stop and go so long each day that I wear down my battery and the ice ends up running while stopped, thus killing my hypermiler goals.