I blew up the inverter????

[galaxee]

if you only put 5k miles on the car in a year, chances are you're not driving it frequently enough to keep the battery charged. the 12v battery is a tiny thing, not like typical cars where it has to have enough power to crank the engine.

jumping a prius backwards usually does blow the inverter. we first reported that from the shop a couple years ago, and unfortunately very few reverse polarity jumps spare the inverter. i'm not saying that you did, but when the situation does occur, the inverter usually bites the dust.

seeing how your salesman (really, why didn't he refer you to service?!) at the dealership instructed you what to do, i think they should carry some liability for having an unqualified individual providing advice on their behalf. especially when they have qualified individuals on site...

have they tested the 12v battery?

[chrisspaulding]

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I think Patrick and Galaxee both have great points and they should be followed in their respective posting order.
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[efusco]

I have a question. When you say the car wouldn't start...at the very beginning of this issue...what did it do exactly?

Did you get any lights any activity at all?
If I had to guess I'd say that it's likely that the cables were reversed on either your end or the original vehicle's end...but I don't have any idea what a diffusable link is unless it is the 100A Fuse.

I'm not sure why you haven't had the car taken to another dealer for a second opinion...you should.

Finally...try not to be reactionary. Just b/c you've had a problem with your Prius doesn't make it, or other Toyotas, or other foreign vehicles inherently bad and it's simply illogical and rash to say "I'll never buy a foreign car again"....if you buy a Ford and then have an expensive problem with it will you also stop buying US cars? I'm not saying you're wrong to be frustrated and angry here...you very much should be and I would be too. Just don't let that frustration and anger override the logical intelligent side of your brain. I've had exclusively US cars before getting my Prius and had all kinds of expensive issues with them...but I'd buy the right US car again.

So, I think your strongest arguement here and the one you should be making through Toyota Customer Care (you have called them and have a case number right?) is that the car failed to start initially and that you believe that was due to an inverter failure...that your attempts to jump were after the inverter had problems. But that arguement will be very very tough to make if the 100A fuse was blown...that's pretty much proof that the polarity when trying to jump was reversed.

I think you now know exactly the details you need to ask for.

[GinnyErns]

Thank you all so much. The posts have been very enlightening and helpful especially Patrick and Icarus.......I am going to print all these comments out as well as the comments from the other post with the 2007 Prius with a dead battery at 1 yr old also. My town prosecuting attorney goes to my church and is a friend. He is a mean machine at work. Will take him all this ammo and see if he can help me. I know I did not cross the cables....but as Patrick or someone said it is possible my jeep battery had more voltage than the Prius and caused some damage. That still gets back to what Icarus said that I did not have sound advice from the salesman who I called before I even touched the car or the dealers repairmen. Since it seems to be common knowledge among hybrid owners that it is easy to blow the car up.....the salesman and mechanic should have warned me. Believe me if someone told me I could do 3K, 4K, 5K or 8K as I read one guy worth of damage I would not have touched the car. Also as Icarus is saying Toyota should have some blocking devices in there to protect the inverter and they should have some warning stickers and they should not have that post up in the front of the car. And I believe they should have a set up on the actual battery with wires coming out to trickle charge the car. I heard there was some design coming out where we would plug our cars in. Maybe this "common blow out of inverteres" is why they are going to a plug in. Anybody know how that new design works and why they are going to it??>????

[GinnyErns]

To Galaxee....wasn't driving the car much....but had driven it 2 or 3 days before and all was fine.
To Efusco....when I put the smart key in....nothing....tried all the usual things...made sure my foot was on the brake....hit the start button several times. The salesman had me try different things too....don't remember exactly....at one point I think there as a red light somewhere ont he dash.....and I did get the car started on a jump....ran it for 5 or 10 minutes then turned it off......Came back in an hour and the car would not start...and from that point on.....there no signs of life anywhere....

I don't doubt the dealership saying the 2 parts are bad.....and they never have told me if the battery is bad........what I doubt is why they think I should pay when the car died in the first place.....and I followed their direction

[efusco]

Since it seems to be common knowledge among hybrid owners that it is easy to blow the car up

Huh! I didn't realize that and this ain't my first rodeo w/ the Prius.

Maybe I didn't read carefully...but I don't remember you saying the car started and ran....that, IMO, makes a huge difference suggesting that you did, indeed, jump properly. How sure are we that the charger on the second attempt by the tow guy didn't blow this thing? If you'd have blown the fuse or inverter w/ the first jump it never would have started.

[Patrick Wong]

Originally Posted by GinnyErns

...I don't doubt the dealership saying the 2 parts are bad.....and they never have told me if the battery is bad...

In my post #20 I tried to outline a scenario that would explain how you could have correctly jumped the car and still had this problem. If you are confident that you correctly connected the jump cables, then you should doubt the diagnosis of a failed inverter.

My guess is that the mechanic looked at the DC/DC fusible link, saw that it popped, and concluded that the inverter was bad without any further thinking or testing. Hence my suggestion that you have the fuse links and the 12V battery replaced, and see if that is sufficient for the car to start.

Or have the car towed to another dealer for another opinion, although that may not be realistic if you are in a less-populated area.

By the way, if you were able to start the car and it ran for 5-10 minutes, that was insufficient time to recharge the battery (assuming that the battery could be recharged.) You would have to leave the car READY for a couple of hours or longer.

[galaxee]

Originally Posted by Patrick Wong

By the way, if you were able to start the car and it ran for 5-10 minutes, that was insufficient time to recharge the battery (assuming that the battery could be recharged.) You would have to leave the car READY for a couple of hours or longer.

it really shouldn't take more than a half hour or so.

so ginny, you jumped the car and it ran, but you shut it off. then the next time you tried to start it, it wouldn't start right? so after the jump, you charged it overnight and then the tow truck guy tried to jump it.

just making sure i'm understanding you here.

so your original jump from the other car was successful. you just didn't run it long enough to restore charge in your 12v battery. but, and i'm speculating without the prius tech here (i'm at work, he's out working on a car), that possibly the overnight charge could have done some damage if not set at the right setting.

or maybe the tow truck guy reversed the polarity.

i hope they replaced the fusible link before assuming the inverter was dead. considering there was a 2 day lag time, i have a hard time seeing where they would have just jumped to a conclusion.

[icarus]

You go for it girl, I have confidence that you will prevail!

As to the jumping point under the hood. I think that that is a great idea (Not withstanding the problems of reverse polarity!) The advantage is that the jump point is far away from the battery, and hence any arc from the cables can not ignite any stray hydrogen. I still stand by my idea that it would be very simple to install (factory) a reverse current device that would protect the car. You hook up the cables, it senses proper polarity and turns on and energizes the battery. If it senses reverse polarity it simply wouldn't turn on, perhaps flashing a red led warning of reverse polarity. I bet my electronics guru could build one for ~$50. Toyota could do it for ~$.50!

Good luck, keep us informed.

Icarus

PS. I agree with Evan et al about throwing the baby out with the bath water! In spite of your bad experiance Toyota makes great cars, and the Prius is a great car. Given the price of fuel, what else can do what it does.

Don't get suckered into a fire sale either!

[Patrick Wong]

Originally Posted by icarus

... I still stand by my idea that it would be very simple to install (factory) a reverse current device that would protect the car. You hook up the cables, it senses proper polarity and turns on and energizes the battery. If it senses reverse polarity it simply wouldn't turn on, perhaps flashing a red led warning of reverse polarity. I bet my electronics guru could build one for ~$50. Toyota could do it for ~$.50!

The simplest approach would be to place a 120A diode at the dedicated jump terminal. The anode would be where one would hook the positive jump cable. The cathode would connect to the existing jump terminal. If the jump cables were reversed the diode would not conduct, hence no harm would be done.

One disadvantage of this simple approach is the 0.7V voltage drop through a silicon diode. Further, this would not protect the circuitry if the car was jumped at the battery.