car dying on me

[tkeller]

I've been dreading this day, my 01 Prius is having some troubles. It had been showing a check engine light, which was the mass air sensor. I cleaned it, but came back later. Also, the air conditioner would blink out every now and then. I have been just driving it like that for a couple of weeks.
Then one day it just died on the road. It would start back up and go a few miles and die again. The mfd would blink and just go white, especially with the brake on. So, I figured it was my 12v battery. I put an Optima in it and everything was fine a couple days. Just died on me again today. At idle I'm reading 13.5 volts to the battery, so I assume it's charging. But is there something else I can check? Could all these things be related somehow?
Thank You for your thoughts.

[Patrick Wong]

I am wondering how you know that the CEL was due to the mass air sensor. How did you clean the sensor?

If you are using an accurate digital multimeter, 13.5V seems a bit on the low side, 13.8V would be more like it. After the car has been IG-OFF for a few hours, what is the battery voltage?

I suggest that you retrieve all stored DTCs, so that you can see what codes exist. Your car may have several problems.

[tkeller]

I have a code 3130. Inverter cooling. Everything seems to run and work fine until it dies. my battery voltage is 13.8 and after a couple hours 11.5. Any ideas or should I get out my wallet?

[donee]

Hi tk,

You may be in luck. That could mean all that is wrong is the inverter coolant pump. Which is electric, and relatively cheap. But it could be even cheaper. Do you see any coolant leaking? In which case it might only be a leaky hose.

[Patrick Wong]

Originally Posted by tkeller

I have a code 3130. Inverter cooling. Everything seems to run and work fine until it dies. my battery voltage is 13.8 and after a couple hours 11.5. Any ideas or should I get out my wallet?

Your inverter coolant pump likely has failed. It is also possible that the inverter is bad. See the attached TSB for more info and also compare the part number on your inverter with the current number which is
G9200–47071.

Can you do a DIY repair? If so, you may find the subscription website techinfo.toyota.com helpful as you can download relevant repair manual pages. The process to purge air out of the coolant loop is difficult and time-consuming.

The coolant pump is covered under the powertrain warranty (which by now has expired) while the inverter is covered under the hybrid system warranty (which is still in effect if you have less than 100K miles on the odometer.) My guess is that the dealer repair will cost around $400 or so; assuming that the coolant pump is bad. If the inverter has failed and is out of warranty, the repair cost will be ~$4,000.