Firstly let me say that the car is still running perfectly and giving great MPG, but I just wanted to document some early signs of traction battery weakness.
View 13 RepliesGot a 2011 Sonata back in 2010, drove for 4.5 years and battery is finally showing weakness this winter, planning to replace the battery, but unable to find the recommended battery specs from the owner's manual.
View 5 Replies2005 prius only starts when negative terminal is disconnected/reconnected. I recently bought this car with the dead 12 volt battery. Jump started to drive home next morning put new battery it started but all kind of sign lit up VSC, (!), snowflake symbol on the road, big triangle with exclamation mark. I was able to drive the car for 1 hour with very poor gas Milage. Now each time I have to start I have to disconnect the terminal for 10-15 min. I have already replaced the MAF SENSOR, and 12 volt battery. During battery installation My 10mm key accidentally touched the positive terminal as well for a split sec. But warning lights were present before the replacement and the gentleman who sold me the said once battery is replaced lights will go away? When I replaced the MAF sensor they were gone for brief moment but came back on after 1/2 a block?
View 3 RepliesWe have 2 Priuses, and our older one has started draining battery quickly. It's my husband's primary commute vehicle and we're wondering if it's age related. We have had to do nothing except replace the regular battery once a few years ago. I spoke with a friend who has the same model year as us and she said they recently had to replace one of the hybrid cells (pardon me if this isn't the right terminology, we're not car people).
View 17 RepliesOnce a Gen I battery starts showing signs of dying (overcharging when should be in "sleep' mode, MPH loss, loss of power, etc.), what is the range for how long the battery might go before all the lights go on indicating "now it's really dying"?
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 RepliesThis 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.
How often should the traction battery cooling fan come on? It started to be warmer here in FL, and I hear this fan more often now. I bought my 2011 in December and up until now almost never heard this fan working. Now it comes on at least couple of times a day, mostly under heavy acceleration in Power mode.
View 6 RepliesMy prius is almost 5 years old and has 88K Klm (49K Miles) My battery has gone down to one bar of late. This never happened until recently, never went below two. The bars seem to fluctuate up and down much quicker than before. My mileage is slightly down but it could be because of other reasons. Does it seem that there is something wrong with the battery? No warning lights are coming on
View 14 RepliesI see this was discussed back in 06 but not resolved. Maybe more owners have had additional experiences with this.
View 18 RepliesMy 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 RepliesI have replaced the Traction battery AND the 12volt battery. I clear all codes by disconnecting the 12 volt battery for a short period of time. I reconnect 12v battery and no warning lights. I drive for 10 miles and RED TRIANGLE, Check Engine and the Brake lights also come on the dash. 2006 Prius 130K miles.
View 16 RepliesReceived these warning lights this morning.
Just took it to a local shop and here are the codes it has thrown:
The car is running badly now -- really not wanting to drive t at all. Where I can get this fixed myself? I have no problem single charging / grid charging / balancing these things out and or replacing hopefully only "block 8" as denoted above. And yes, this is the nightmare of having you battery go out -- 160k miles right now so no chance of warranty.
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?
View 19 Replies2013 Prius v (wagon) Level 3: When I pull into a rest stop (“Ready” on, in “Park”) for a few hours of snooze, and the traction battery is “full” (~6 bars), it will run the AC for 60-90 minutes before the ICE starts up (at 2 bars) to recharge the battery. It recharges to 3 bars (in ~3 min) and then shuts off.
After that the ICE cycles on every 15-20 min (which is annoying) and each time it runs just long enough to charge from 2 bars to 3 bars. All of that on/off is hard to sleep through. I bought this car because it can run the AC off the battery, which it will automatically charge when low. It’s brilliant – up to a point.
Question: How do I tell the ICE to charge the traction battery from 2 bars all the way up to 6 bars again (should take ~ 15 min or so) while parked, for another whole hour+ of quiet slumber?
Long 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...