Engine revs, car dies, red triangle, codes?

What did the dealership suggest, if anything? I'd be inclined to go with the suggestion with the last error code.

 

Maybe some calls to corporate Toyota will get them to pitch in for part of the cost. Worth a try.

Sometimes the best, or even only, way out of a bad situation is to just keep going. You're position is always better with a car in good condition, whether you keep, or trade/sell.

I wonder to: how long since you purchased: maybe seller was already having problems, had done stop-gap measures and quickly sold??

 

why not pull the battery and replace the bad cells? have you talked to jeff at hybrid grid chargers?

 

Wouldn't a new 12v battery take care of at least half of the problems listed above? The electronics gets squirrelly when the 12v is going bad. I don't know of any situation where the 12v should ever need a trickle charge at all if it is still good.

Bill the Engineer

 

The HV battery fan running all the time doesn't sound promising.

If it was just weird dash lights then 12v is a good first port of call.

 

when the battery pack in my first prius died I had the cooling fan running all the time as well along with all the warning lights..
I found one bad cell that I replaced with one from e bay for $35, cleaned all the copper connectors and reset the codes, drove it for about 5000 miles before selling it. no problems..hope you get off that cheaply ..good luck

 

Your hybrid battery has a failed module or 2. Get a mini VCI and you can find out which block is faulty. I've rebuilt close to 100 Prius batteries and I will tell you that replacing modules is a temporary fix because there will be others that are weak. There are guides here on how to actually recondition all of the modules but it is very time consuming if you want to do it right. Your 12 volt battery is low because the 4 Amp charge circuit from the hybrid battery has not been charging it up properly. I run into that a lot on repairs but with a good hybrid battery the 12 volt will probably bounce back depending on its age.

Sorry you spent $500 on the grid charger and it didn't fix your car. Jeff needs to stop marketing the grid charger as a repair tool. It won't fix a failed battery. It can only keep a healthy battery in top shape.

I can tell you also that if you've had the car for 2 weeks the previous owner knew that the battery was going and probably did a cell replacement and dumped it. I'm seeing a ton of 05's and 06's right now that are being picked up at auction with bad batteries and having quick repairs done and then selling for profit. Sorry it happened to you and hope you can get it fixed properly.

Matt

 

what are the acceptable voltage ranges per block?

 

15 to 16 volts per block is acceptable. The block with a failed module will be 1.2 lower. You should let the car sit for an hour before reading the numbers and don't go to READY. Just hit the power button twice with your foot off the brake to get in ACC. That will power up the battery ECU without putting any load on the battery.

 

all within your numbers but it drops to two purple bars from all blue in ACC within 15 min's...I thought it had a bad cell

 

Maybe it doesn't, based on the age and the symptoms I figured it did. That could be good news for you. I think you need to charge your 12 Volt battery. Leaving it in ACC for extended periods of time is probably draining it very low. If your reading the live HV Battery data from techstream see what the Aux Battery Volts is reading. I'm guessing it's pretty low.

 

11.8 at two purple bars (I thought the same) using techstream ..im going to pull the hv batt cover and check corrosion ..

 

Pressing the the power button twice with your foot off the brake will get you into IG-ON mode.
Pressing the the power button once with your foot off the brake will get you into ACC mode.

Can you clarify whether you do mean ACC mode, or do you really mean IG-ON?

 

Your exactly right. My procedure was correct but the wording was wrong. Two times to go to IG-ON. That way you can read block voltages at steady state. Thanks for the correction. Sorry if I confused anybody.

 

Would you say the grid charger does or does not work as well as using charger/rebalancers from the hobby store? Do they have the same effect, or is the individual charging/discharging/balancing more effective?

 

First things first.....check to make sure the 12v battery is good!

Since you've spent money on the grid charger already, you can look for someone to swap out the bad modules, then rebalance with the grid charger.

That would be the cheapest solution to your problem.