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Dead 'battery' and maintenance error

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by magicguy, Mar 30, 2011.

  1. magicguy

    magicguy Junior Member

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    Yesterday I was going home and I had a dead 'battery' on my 2006 Prius. The lights were dim inside and all the maintenance lights came on. I realized when I had left the car at lunch, it was beeping at me so I figured something was left on.

    I jumped the car, and at first it wouldn't run at all. The center screen said there was an error with the transaxle in park and that I should put the car on a flat surface and put it the emergency brake on. The parking button wasn't working either - it ws flashing. The car was on a flat surface already. I tried to start it about 5 times, and I put it in neutral to roll it backwards just a little.

    After about 10 min, the car did start, but I continuously get the large red triangle on the dash. I looked in the book and it said to restart it and see what pictures came up on the center screen. When I restarted, I got the picture of the car with the exclamation point through it at the top, too.

    I'm planning on calling the dealer today but was wondering if anyone knows what's up or has experienced this before. I haven't had any mechanical problems with my Prius at all and I have less than 30k miles on it.

    Thanks,
    John
     
    #1 magicguy, Mar 30, 2011
  2. uart

    uart Senior Member

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    Try leaving the jump battery connected for a few minutes prior to starting. Make sure that jump battery is fully charged.
     
    #2 uart, Mar 30, 2011
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  3. magicguy

    magicguy Junior Member

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    I left it connected for about 10 min last night when I jumped it. In addition, the battery on the energy consumption screen showed about 75% charged (and blue bars) after these 10 minutes when I drove home. I thought maybe I needed it to be running for a bit also.

    John
     
    #3 magicguy, Mar 30, 2011
  4. uart

    uart Senior Member

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    Ok I misread the original post and didn't see that you eventually did get it to start.

    Yeah you just need to drive it around (or leave it in ready mode) for a fair bit longer before the 12V battery will get it's charge back. Unfortunately the Prius battery charging system is pretty slow so it takes a few hours at least.

    One thing to watch out for is that these batteries sometimes don't ever come back to full capacity if they've been too far discharged. Drive it around a bit and see if the battery charge comes back enough. If it does then no problems, but if it doesn't and you find it going flat again for seemingly no reason then you might need a new battery.
     
    #4 uart, Mar 30, 2011
  5. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    That is the hybrid vehicle warning icon.

    Your car has a weak 12V battery. The battery state-of-charge gauge that you mentioned is for the high voltage traction battery. That gauge does not report the status of the 12V battery. It is possible that the weak 12V battery induced a bogus fault which is causing the warning icon to appear.

    My suggestion is that you replace the 12V battery now since it is ~5 years old, and see if you have a driveability issue or if warning lights continue to appear. If so, then take the car to your local Toyota dealer. Good luck.
     
    #5 Patrick Wong, Mar 30, 2011
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  6. magicguy

    magicguy Junior Member

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    I think I'm going to run the car for 30min or so and see if that charges the battery. The next step will be to replace the battery ($140 at the local dealer + labor if I don't do it myself), and then if that doesn't work take it to the dealer.

    I'm a little disappointed in the support here in New York. In Albuquerque, Karl Malone Toyota was great for service. I have no doubt they would have looked at it for free and told me fairly what I needed. The dealership here said it's up to $99 just to look at it. Not such great support for their product IMHO...

    John
     
    #6 magicguy, Mar 30, 2011
  7. Patrick Wong

    Patrick Wong DIY Enthusiast

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    30 minutes is insufficient time to charge a discharged 12V battery. If you want to give battery charging a fair try, you'll need to do that overnight (8 hours) at minimum, even better to charge for a 24 hour period.
     
    #7 Patrick Wong, Mar 30, 2011
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  8. magicguy

    magicguy Junior Member

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    Are you referring to using a tricker charger? I'm guessing you mean take the battery out of the back and hook it up to a tricker charger overnight to see if that works?

    I was thinking of having my wife turn the car on (outside the garage) and run it for 30 min to see if that charges the battery. I know on other cars, if something was left on, all you had to do was run the car for a while to get the charge back up on the battery.

    Thanks again for your help,
    John

     
    #8 magicguy, Mar 30, 2011
  9. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    #9 richard schumacher, Mar 30, 2011
  10. seilerts

    seilerts Battery Curmudgeon

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    Yes, this is really the only hope that you have, other than leaving the car in Ready all day/night. It is not necessary to take the 12V battery out of the back, but you should hook the charger up to it directly. You have a 36 amp-hour battery that now has 0% state of charge. At the very least, you need 10 hours in Ready, charging the battery at 3.5 amps, or 9 hours on a 12V 4 amp trickle charger, to see if your battery can be revived. 30 minutes will not cut it, and the longer your battery stays near full discharge, the more sulfation damage it will suffer, and the less charge it will hold. The Prius is not like other cars.
     
    #10 seilerts, Mar 30, 2011
  11. dhancock

    dhancock 2 Prius Family

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    I'm a bit surprised that no one "picked up" on this - but I thought that we should point out to magicguy that what he is seeing on the consumption screen relates to the HV (200v) traction battery. The 12v battery that we are talking about here is a different guy. It runs some of the accessories, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, provides power to the various processors that control virtually all operations in the car. If this voltage is low, weird things can happen.
     
    #11 dhancock, Mar 31, 2011
  12. richard schumacher

    richard schumacher shortbus driver

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    Patrick did in #5.
     
    #12 richard schumacher, Apr 2, 2011
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  13. dhancock

    dhancock 2 Prius Family

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    I would have thought that he would. Somehow, I missed that. Thanks for the correction.
     
    #13 dhancock, Apr 2, 2011
  14. uart

    uart Senior Member

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    Any update from the OP. Did your battery take a charge or did you have to replace it? Please let us know if you are still around.
     
    #14 uart, Apr 3, 2011
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