Prius died on freeway. 3 lug nuts missing, is this the cause?

Hi Brandon. What's the current state of charge of the HV battery, as indicated on by the 8 red/blue/green bars on the energy monitor screen. I tried to look for this on your video but I see you don't have that screen selected. You really should have that screen selected, especially in your current situation.

 

Ok, definitely try to get a reading on the SOC. It's kind of an important thing to know right now, it might be the reason that you currently can't start. I'm surprised that you were able to rule out this possibility when you actually can't even see the display.

 

...noticed that when the car was powered up the "ready" light was not illuminated. Could be the reason for the car not shifting into Drive as the computers have detected a problem and will not allow you to put the vehicle in gear.

 

Btw, if your driving the car and the engine is not coming on you are driving on the hybrid battery.

Here's the most important question:

When the car died on the highway were you able to drive a ways on battery only? And how far?

 

You indicated that your MFD was working intermittently - however, usually when the master warning light is illuminated, the MFD will indicate that there is a problem and display a symbol and / or an abbreviation. For example: when my power steering went a few weeks ago (I needed a new power steering ecu) the warning light illuminated, the MFD indicated "problem" and then displayed a "PS" in the upper LH corner. Anything on your MFD?

 

No ready no go. Which is telling as even if the engine won't start it still should go into READY unless he flagged the Hybrid battery.

Probably has a super clogged throttle body...stalled the motor...and he drove till the Hybrid battery died.
Simulating a run out of gas which we have seen a million times.

And btw, his 12 volt battery is beyond toast.

 

For sure, you need a new 12V battery to start. Let's see what happens after you have a good battery installed.

You also should try to figure out how it is possible that a wheel was missing three lug nuts and replace them. Also check the other three wheels to make sure that all lug nuts are present and tightened to 76 ft.-lb.

 

OK. Maybe you should start from the beginning. What exactly happened? How fast were you driving? What is the air temperature? I can't seem to find any posts earlier than "3 lug nuts missing".

Now for the important stuff... DO NOT run down the hybrid battery. While the low oil is definitely a problem, I highly doubt that this is the reason for your "no start" situation / car cutting out on the highway. There are a few things that you should do before attempting to do anything with the car. First off, get new lug nuts and torque to the proper specs. Even if you were to get the car started, you would not want to be moving it around with only 2 lug nuts! Secondly, knowing that the oil is low, perform an oil/filter change. Check the MFD for any problem codes and report back. A scanner is the best bet to pull any codes that were thrown. Pulling the negative battery cable as you know will temporarily clear the codes but if the problem persists, they will return. Once you install the new battery, give us an update!

 

I see you have your day planned for tomorrow - good luck with the battery. BTW was the combination meter ever replaced in that vehicle?

 

No, the combination is the digital display (speed, odometer, fuel gauge, etc). When this starts going bad, the dash does not illuminate and the car is difficult to shut down (MFD (center screen) stays on, green light on power button stays on but car will not power down. To turn off car, you must hold the power button down with foot on brake until the car shuts down. The CM is under an enhanced warranty good for 9 years from the in-service date or Sept 2013...which ever comes LATER! While watching your video, the difficulty that you had powering down your car reminded me of a similar experience when my CM was on its way out. The first time mine failed was in HOT weather in the middle of summer!