Master Warning, ABS, (!), and Hybrid Vehicle Warning icon

[spitinuri]

Patrick,

I'm sure you will find the the root cause of this problem. If you are on the original 12v battery though, it can play all kinds of weird tricks on your car. Hopefully it is not the battery ecu.

[josemedina]

I just got my car back after being at the dealer for 1 week.

I was quoted $600 and ended up paying $700 for the inverter coolant pump. $472 was just the labor.

I noticed that it chirps the tires again now when I take off fast.

131,000 miles on my 2005

Waiting to trade in on a 2010.

[Patrick Wong]

Originally Posted by hobbit

...Maybe one of your thermistors is itself out of spec and erroneously reported a higher temp?...Glad to hear it was most likely a transient thing, though.

I haven't heard the traction battery fan running at high speed as it had been prior to the dealer tech reprogramming the ECUs. I've heard the fan running at low speed once or twice, since getting the car back. So the thermistors are probably OK.

Originally Posted by jayman

So everything is ok so far??

No warning lights yet. However the SOC gauge does drop down to two red bars more frequently than I remember. In the past this seemed to happen only if I ran the A/C while the car is in P. We're planning to drive to Grand Canyon on Monday or Tuesday, which should give the Prius another chance to become a Christmas tree. I've located a couple of Toyota dealers within ~40 miles of Sedona, so hopefully I can "limp" to one or the other if needed.

Originally Posted by spitinuri

... If you are on the original 12v battery though, it can play all kinds of weird tricks on your car. Hopefully it is not the battery ecu.

I don't think the 12V battery is the problem since the original symptoms did not appear upon startup. It's OK with me if the battery ECU fails, as long as it does that before 100K miles...

[Patrick Wong]

The Prius survived the ~300 mile roundtrip from Sedona to Grand Canyon NP yesterday without warning lights coming on. Lots of elevation changes during the trip, and the SOC gauge registered the full range from one red bar to eight green bars.

[Shawn Clark]

Originally Posted by Patrick Wong

The Prius survived the ~300 mile roundtrip from Sedona to Grand Canyon NP yesterday without warning lights coming on. Lots of elevation changes during the trip, and the SOC gauge registered the full range from one red bar to eight green bars.

One might estimate that steep/large elevation changes in more extreme temps that exercise the battery more rapidly and across more of its range would lead to the most rapid failure within the operating tolerance. However, being on flat ground with high temps, high humidity, and godawful traffic could also be hard on it (high AC amp draw when idling in traffic, along with crawling along, many starts/stops leading to deep cycles.) Can you say Houston?

It would be interesting to see the battery life expressed in terms of standard cycles and what impact various conditions have in reducing the cycle count. I'm not sure I've ever had a red/purple bar--if I did it was early on, perhaps after a long EV run followed by overnight cold soak when it dropped several bars overnight. I get double greens sometimes when coming downhill off the interstate and when the ICE is running incessantly in winter apparently to heat the battery. Here the terrain is hilly, so there are a lot of cycles and regen, but not deep cycles.

Patsparks is on a mission to prove that running out of gas once is a catastrophe, but I would be more concerned about 10 cycles up and down a mountain than a single out of gas episode. Running out of gas should not be a problem unless the driver then did several unwise things to compound the problem.

The good news for you is that you have this episode documented now. If something failed just outside of warranty you might get some help since you can point to it being a pre-existing condition. I did that with Nissan once, and they surprised me with 100% reimbursement (I would have gladly taken half.)

[tochatihu]

Re: HV battery heating. In my 2001 Prius, no operations would heat the battery as effectively as 'ridgerunning'; continual elevation changes on mountain roads. Flat country was not even close, regardless of outside temperatures and engine duty cycle.

The electrode design since 2004 is much better and those battery may heat less on the hills. This remains uncertain due to lack of experimental data.

[Patrick Wong]

Another round-trip to Grand Canyon NP today. The traction battery SOC gauge had an opportunity to range from two red bars to eight green bars.

We've driven around 1,200 miles since the car had the engine and hybrid vehicle ECUs reprogrammed in Tucson last week. No warning lights have appeared since then, so it looks like that solved the problem.

Since the relevant SSC had been performed 3 years ago, I'm wondering whether the nonvolatile memory in one of the ECUs lost a bit and got screwed up? Anyone venture a guess as to how that might happen?

[dogfriend]

Originally Posted by Patrick Wong

.

Since the relevant SSC had been performed 3 years ago, I'm wondering whether the nonvolatile memory in one of the ECUs lost a bit and got screwed up? Anyone venture a guess as to how that might happen?

Stray Gamma rays? Did you drive past the

*

Nevada_test_site

on the way to Arizona?

[Shawn Clark]

Perhaps the flash 3 years ago didn't actually take (was not done properly, or not at all since it was never entered into the system?) Is there a way to confirm what rev it has? Another remote possibility is that it was accidentally flashed with the wrong rev...or reflashed without your knowledge to the wrong rev. on a subsequent dealer visit for something else entirely.

[a priori]

Originally Posted by Patrick Wong

I'm wondering whether the nonvolatile memory in one of the ECUs lost a bit and got screwed up? Anyone venture a guess as to how that might happen?

Patrick,

I'm very glad to hear you've pulled through this one.

You should know, because of our time together at PCD, that I am the last one who really would know how to answer this question. (It won't stop me from trying, though.)

Is it possible that it was an issue with power supply to one of those ECUs? A little surge or some "dirty" power?

(And the rest of you: Take it easy on me, I'm just trying to learn a little here!)