Red triangle and hybrid warning light, and Check engine light illuminated! Please help!

Well that's likely the problem with your 12V. You're not driving enough to charge it. 5 miles will do very little to charge your 12V battery. A pattern of this style of driving will slowly drag your 12V down to almost nothing.

 

Yes.

It is important to measure voltage at the 12V battery as well as the auxiliary power socket, to see how much difference there is between the two points. If there is a substantial difference, that would show a problem with the positive battery cable leading from the battery to the engine compartment, or a problem with the negative battery cable connecting to the battery and body ground.

 

This has been quite a trial for you so far, JDirtbikerR.
The extreme cold weather just makes the diagnosis part that much harder!

I'm following this thread with interest since the 12v and hybrid battery issues can sometimes be a chicken and the egg quandary.

Swapping out the original 12v was a good place to start. As you noted it was likely time to do it regardless.

It would not be out of the ordinary for your HV Battery to react poorly in this extreme cold. If it was already on the edge, the cold weather can push it over the edge, making the car throw codes. Clearly you are having blocks that are beginning to vary from the rest.

You've been getting great advice from the others on this thread about the 12v issue. Once you sort through the 12v charging issue, you will likely need to address your hybrid battery. But we can cross that bridge when we get to it.

A Gen 1 Prius Battery with Gen 2 cells will set you back ~$2,500 if you have an independent shop install it.
If you feel handy enough, you can get one sent to and you can install it yourself for ~$500 less. You'd need about a weeks lead time.

I'd be happy to talk via phone if you need advice or just want to bounce other battery pack ideas around.

Main thing is, do not buy a used or rebuilt hybrid battery with Gen 1 cells.

 

I hear this all the time and I'm really starting to wonder why. Are the Gen 1 modules really that bad? I always hear, "they are inferior" or "they leak" etc. Am I just lucky because my Gen I modules are doing just fine and have been for 13 years. Additionally, I (my observations possibly biased) see about the same failure rate on Gen 2 modules that I see from Gen 1 modules. Is there really any documented evidence that supports this claim or is it just what the industry is generally seeing?

 

It is a documented issue that the Gen 1 batteries leak electrolyte. Toyota addressed some of it by issuing a Toyota Service Bulletin and requiring techs open up the battery pack and "re-seal" each cell with some goop. They also scrubbed down the bussbars and hardware. It worked well enough, but no reason to repeat this mess.

Better to go with non- leaking Gen 2 cells whenever possible.

 

You can do a do-it-yourself replacement on a Classic for much less than $2000... I replaced mine a few years ago for less than that, and that's including the fact that I forfeited the "core" charge that I would have gotten back if I had returned the old battery (I kept it for experimentation)..

It's actually very easy- first get a chair or a some other object that is roughly the same level as the trunk opening, and put it near the back of the car (this is to put the battery on after you get it out of the car- you can do the replacement without having this support platform nearby, but it's much easier if you have something close by to put the battery on after you lift it out of the trunk, especially if you're doing it alone, without any help). Next, clear out your trunk, then put a sheet of heavy cardboard in there (not to prevent scrapes or anything, but just so you have something to slide the battery on), remove the back seat, pull the safety plug from the battery, remove the ventilation duct (this was actually the most difficult part of the operation as the duct connection to the battery on the passenger side needs a bit of massaging to get off). Undo the wire connections (I taped off the high voltage lines to the car just in case the capacitors in the converter still had some charge and clearly labeled each). Then remove the nuts holding the battery to the car chassis, insert a crowbar or big screwdriver underneath the battery and lever it off the studs and give it a shove rearward into the trunk (you could also take it out through the passenger compartment, but I found it easier to go through the trunk). In the trunk, make use of the cardboard liner you put in earlier to shift the battery pack towards the rear, then wearing good leather gloves (as you will be putting your fingers around sharp sheet metal edges), lift one end of the battery up onto the trunk ledge and balancing the pack, carefully work it out of the trunk until you can grab the other end and then using your back, heft the battery out of the trunk (it's over 100lb, so most adult males should be able to heft it, but use care; if you have a helper this is where they can help share the load) and carefully move it over and put it on the support platform and take a rest.. Once you've recovered from hernia surgery ;-), get the replacement battery pack and basically follow the procedure in reverse: put it in the trunk, use the cardboard to slide it back towards its mounting position, use the big screwdriver or crowbar to lever it back in place over the studs, replace the nuts, reconnect all the wiring (make sure you torque the high voltage leads properly) and duct work, replace the back seat and the safety plug, then go ahead and try to start the car.. Took me about 30-40 minutes start to finish after studying the Toyota service manuals, and again, the hardest part was actually the ventilation duct, the rest of the work was just heavy lifting..

In terms of the 12V battery, I ended up replacing the one in my Classic with the same battery that a Honda Civic uses (make sure you get the "-R" version, as it has the battery terminals in the same orientation as the Prius battery). The new battery is about $50, so cheaper than the special order Prius battery, and available at both Costco and Walmart and probably any other cheap auto parts supply, it is only slightly bigger and has more capacity, but it still fits into the battery well. The terminals are a different size than the Prius battery, so you'll have to buy a new ground lead+terminal clamp and a new positive terminal clamp. I used just a standard lead terminal clamp and lead for the ground (which you might want to consider even if your Prius battery is still good: the Prius clamp was stainless steel and in good condition, but the wire leading to the chassis was kind of wimpy and the chassis connection showed some rust and corrosion, so I wire brushed and sanded around the ground connection point on the chassis and used a new stainless bolt to really get a good connection to the chassis and then coated the area with silicone grease to prevent corrosion. For the positive terminal clamp, I just got a brass "marine" terminal clamp, which was an easy retrofit: unbolt the existing positive clamp and bolt in the new one, then install and attach the new battery and away you go.. In 14 years, I replaced the 12V battery twice

 

Did you by a new battery replacement?
Or was it refurbished (used cells)?

M470BSA ?

 

It was a refurb pack using 2nd gen cells.. I noticed a big difference in the "stealth" capability (as the first gen didn't have a formal "EV mode) with the 2nd gen cells vs. the first gen, back when it was new.. The 2nd gen cells have much better heat sinking and I was driving much longer runs on battery-only, and my mileage improved, even though those cells were not new..

 

Nice! Interesting feedback about the subtle differences between the two packs.
I hear the same things from customers as well.

 

c4, where did you obtain your traction battery from for reference and cost paid? Interesting information on the 12v battery as well.
TomK

 

Well, my diagnosis is your traction battery has a bad cell and its telling you that p3011. I'm confident your 12V battery is no longer causing your problems and your problem now seems apparent.

 

It would be a very good idea to charge the battery to full once a week (say Friday evening to Saturday morning) if you keep up this driving pattern. With longer drives of say 15-20 min, it wouldn't be a necessity.

 

I just got a regular flooded version, but AGM versions are available in that size as well, just more $$.. I don't think going with an AGM version would have really gotten me significantly more service life.. Perhaps an extra year or so, but over 14 years, that would still have been two replacements, and I'd then have been out 2x the cost delta.. The first battery I got was from Canadian Tire and it had a vent port, the second was a Walmart version and did not.. No leaks or corrosion with either battery though..

I got my rebuilt pack from ReInVolt who were the only ones willing to ship up to Canada, and at the time, even with shipping (about $150 with a LTL shipper; standard courier like FedEx or US was not recommended due to cost as well as likelihood that the pack would be destroyed in transit due to the rough handling practices of courier companies), I paid under $2k.. The downside with an LTL shipper is that you may have to wait on your shipment until they have a bigger shipment going to or towards your destination, and this could happen over several legs, and if you happen to be on the other side of the border, you have to arrange your own customs brokerage- the shipper won't do it for you.. But all in all, I'd so it again- the work I had to do was not that bad: it only took about a week and a half to get here, and I had to fill out some paperwork with a customs broker to establish an account and spend some time looking up the customs tariff to find the appropriate codes for a recycled hybrid vehicles battery pack over a certain voltage..

 

I don't sell them on ebay (too much overhead), but would be happy to talk with you.
If you want to purchase a full pack, you will need to surrender your old pack as a core.
If you don't return the core you would need to pay an additional fee. (Sometimes as much as $1,000 more!)