My 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 RepliesSo our car has performed flawlessly since 2005/135K miles. Still getting 55 mpg in the display in the summer, 45 mpg in the winter. Only issue is traction battery SOC quickly goes to full green when coasting downhill, and 1 or 2 purple bars when climbing. In Colorado, this happens a lot. Within a mile or so coasting downhill the SOC is full green. Question is: should I replace the traction battery? Is there any harm to continuing to experience this behavior? When full green, I realize I am using friction braking over regen braking, have actually felt the crossover from regen to the pads, as the SOC goes full green.
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 RepliesI've watched the DVD, I've browsed through the manual and I still don't understand this car. After 2 weeks, I have 150 miles on the car and the battery display has never shown it to be more than half charged - mostly under half, like only highlighting/reading 3 bars. I'm averaging 28 mpg. I've driven in power mode and EV mode and neither seems to make a difference to the mpg. I've been on the Hwy with it, but due to construction zones haven't had it up past 60 mph. Most of the miles have been racked up on roads with speed limits of 35/40 mph. I guess what I'm asking, primarily, is should I be concerned about the battery not fully charging? And, is there a break-in period with this car like there was/is with American made autos?
View 19 RepliesMy 2002 Prius stopped while driving down the road and will not restart.
The fuel level is flashing and was ~ 1/2 when the car failed. My scanner will not read the OBDC 2 (not connecting). The windows other than the drivers will not go up or down.
The PRNDLB does not show gear.
The 12 volt battery is OK, but the HV battery shown as blank on the energy screen.
I hate to put too much into a 2002 with 190,000 miles, but it does still have value if I can get it running again.
For example if I needed a rebuilt battery for 15-1800 I would probably go for it. So far the car has been 100% reliable.
I replaced my hybrid battery of my NHW10 a year ago. now recently it shows the warning triangle. Once it went off after a long drive but now its permanent. is there a way to Diagnose what is the cause of this? If its a Hybrid battery issue, will it go off if i replace the bad cells?
View 3 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 RepliesWhy the battery indicator on my v is never full? It's always one bar less...
How is everyone's battery indicator, have you ever get it to fully charged?
I 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've had my C a week and a half and it is doing great, but I wonder if the system is ok. It has never shown the battery at 100%. My Civic would charge all the way quite often.
View 19 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?