Replaced 2 Transaxles and the HV Battery and Still Not Working... advice please.

Sounds like incompetent dealers. Call Toyota itself, not the individual franchise and you will be able to get a charge. It is extremely unlikely one dealer has one sitting around to use on cars on the lot. Toyota does not allow that.

Show them this if they are that clueless:

 

Call and try again. The answer is they do charge them. The problem is it is so rare, the actual procedure is lost.

Tell them to look at the Toyota Technical Training Manual, Section 5 "HV Battery Control Systems", 6 pages in on the subsection labeled "High Voltage Battery Charger"

From the manual:

 

If need be, read it to the dealer or number you call. It should make enough sense to where they will transfer you to the regional rep if they can. Usually they don't do that, and then they act as a 3rd party between you so that the regional rep never deals directly with you. But you never know. Someone at that dealership should learn how to contact the correct people!

 

That bad boy was screaming! Thats good news so far. Engine turns freely.
Back to the battery charge issue then.

 

Okay, the crank turns freely, but MG1 will only kick it slightly when attempting to start. To me, this indicates a problem inside the trans, i.e. the damper like Brit says, or a winding short in MG1. If only the HV battery were low, it is more likely that the crank would turn, but slower than necessary to trigger ignition. This is where having at least a ScanGauge would help, because it would be possible to see the HV voltage and associated drop when trying to start. I think MG1 RPM is also available? Anyway, another test would be to watch 12V bus voltage as the Ready like comes on, seeing 12V+/- jump to 14V+/- when the DC converter comes online.

 

Just a thought if the car can be made ready and put into D if you tow the car surely regen from MG2 will charge the HV battery or am I missing something.

 

Providing it can be put into D no harm at all, if you have an EV switch but I believe unlike the UK in the US you do not, you could stop the ice from trying to run till the HV battery was fully charged.
You will know as soon as you get above 7MPH if the battery is charging by the green arrows on the MFD. If you gently apply the brakes (dependant on what your towing with) this will increase the charge rate and reduce the distance you need to travel. Best of luck.

Jhhn.

 

If you do tow the vehicle make sure the 12v is well charged or even put another battery in parallel with it as it runs the brakes and the power steering.

John

 

How many bars are on your battery display? It will start with 1 bar, even none, but if it is none, you don't know how much charge you have. Get a digital volt meter, remove the cover from the left side of the battery pack. You will see two relays with thick red wires. You want to measure the voltage between the 2 wires on the right (passenger side in US) of each relay with the car off. Make sure you only touch the plastic on the meter test points, 200 volts can present a nice shock. To be extra careful, remove metal jewelery, watches, rings etc. from you hands incase you slip.

Also, are you getting and DTCs?

 

Pat mentioned this before, I think that HV is only present when the relay(s) make. At that point the normally isolated ground is now present. Sound right. If the OP gets into that area, it would be nice to have a photo and the measurement points.

 

A scangauge, mangoose, etc is a much easier way to get the voltage.

It is somewhat of a chore to get to the terminals. The procedure is: Open the hatch. Take out the carpet, the floorboard, and the black storage tray. Remove the little storage compartment and its cover from the driver's side. Pop out the plastic deck trim panel that covers the hatch latch. Loosen the large driver's side trim panel, a combination of body clips and 10 mm screws. Move to the back seat, and remove the driver's side back seatback, and pull forward (but do not remove) the top of the trim that runs between the seatback and the door frame (i.e. on the other side, this is the piece that has the HV battery fan inlet). The HV battery has a floorboard covering -- use a trim tool and pop up the clip in the forward center, then it will slide of the other two clips that are on the rearward sides. Now it is possible to remove the large side panel, which then exposes the battery bracket bolts. Remove that, then remove the terminal cover bolts.

The Prius Dismantling Guide is very helpful for the job. Use Google.

The picture below shows the terminals. Normally, you will find two white caps covering the terminals on the battery side of the system main relays (the two black things with copper strips). I cannot emphasize enough the risk to your person if you get this far, and you have left the 12V battery and service plug connected. In fact, I suggest: disconnect the 12V and service plug, get the terminals exposed, clipping leads to the the frame wires, install the service plug (handle must slide all the way down), turn on your meter (should read 0V) connect the 12V, and make the car Ready. Watch the voltage as soon as the SMRs click on. Any reading above 200V at any time suggests to me that the battery is not the problem. From my experience with bad packs, the car will still start even if voltage sags as low as 6V per module, 168V.

 

HELLO Seilerts, Excuse my nitpicking, but at what points are ones pos and neg leads of meter on? I understood that the two orange leads are not measurable as both are positive and a main relay R1 or R3 makes a usable normally isolated ground. As you see I also have a 05. I am just gathering information, I do not plan on tearing into the battery case. Thanks for the great photo.

 

Doesn't matter. Your just looking for the volt level it doesn't matter if its reversed. It will read the same volt level. Either -200 or 200. Just need the 200.
But if you need to know you'll find out real quick when you hook the probes up.