Common 2G Problems, and What to Do About Them...

Not when you're cruising along silently on the electric thrust motors you won't........you'll be a silent Ninja on wheels in electric mode

 

Excellent point! I've also found I can add to my Halloween stealth approach with a can of "plastic dip" from Pep Boys for a temporary Look that gets wide eyed head spins.


iPhone ?

 

Ok - this is funny - but stay with me.

You get a beeping in your garage after parking/turning off your Prius. Sounds like any of the other freakin' beeping sounds it makes. It does NOT occur when you are "out and about" and stop your vehicle in parking lots around the world.

Check the battery backup on your garage door opener. Yes, I had this happen. Couldn't isolate it for a day or so, then pulled out the car onto the driveway, heard the beep - but it came from INSIDE the garage. Before, always sounded like it came from the Prius, even when standing RIGHT BESIDE THE PRIUS.

Too many beeps, they all sound about the same, and they must all use the same supplier for those piezo speakers I guess.

 

I like what you did to your front bumper and hood. Would like to do this to my hood, if it doesn't work, I guess I will have to go the body shop route.

 

I read here that many have seen trouble with their 12 volt batteries, I will have to add my view, too. I replaced mine at the 150,000 mile mark and nine years, eleven months and fifteen days after purchase. That says a lot about the quality of the original battery. Afterwards I did notice a slight increase in mileage.
My car is a 2004 Package #9 which I waited six months to get. In four years I put ninety thousand miles on mine. The last sixty thousand have taken around six years to roll on. I have had three sets of tires after the originals wore down at forty-five thousand miles. I have Michelin HydroEdge on it now, and I am about half way worn out. The tires are size 195/60-15. The car sits a little lower and I scrape the curb coming into my driveway. I believe that this throws the miles per gallon "consumption" reading off. I have been averaging 41 mpg for the last five years.
Mine has had the inverter water pump and the engine water pump replaced. I have actually had the inverter water pump replaced twice. The first time was at ninety-eight thousand.
I had the headlamp level sensor replaced around fifty thousand. Toyota knew what it was and fixed it under the 100000/seven year extended warranty. If you have HID headlamps, you have a device attached to the rear axle that when a load is added to the rear it drops or lowers the headlamp beams so they are not in the eyes of on coming drivers.
The car runs regardless, it has never ever left me stranded. It can hobble home and I can usually get some info by my code reader. The car is not extremely fast but it is definitely not slow either. It goes in snow, ice, rain and even in the wind. I have the utmost confidence in my Prius.
The MFD occasionally does not show me average or miles. Eventually, it does come back on its own.
I have replaced the spark plugs, the #4 plug is a little hard than the rest. Be calm and do not cross thread or over tighten these plugs. Note: do not change plugs until the engine is cool. Otherwise, you may damage the threads in the head.
My car had a dirty Mass Air Flow sensor, and I removed and cleaned it myself. Look it up on the 'net, it is not that hard to do.
I used Toyota motor oil until the 15,000 mile service. I switched over to synthetic oil and have not looked back. I have zero starting problems in hot or cold. Also, I have changed the air filter every ten thousand. Think about it, the air gets pulled into the engine, several liters of it. The cleaner the filter, the less change of dirt in your engine. You don't have to do it, but it is working for me.
So that about covers it. No big nasty surprises. Yes, I still have the original high voltage battery and my brakes ( both pads and shoes ) are original, too. I wash it when it needs it. I have hauled ten bags of mulch in it. I moved my daughters twin bed and box springs in it (yes the back door was open but it did fit).
Even with all of the miles on it, I am not afraid to go to Florida, California, Maine or even Washington or Montana tomorrow in it. The Prius will just continue on regardless. Quality is knowing that something is well built and will last a long time after the payment are done. I never thought that I would hold onto this Gen II Prius as long as I have but I really like this car. I still smile every time I drive it. Isn't it nice when things just work? Bravo to the engineers that got all the kinks and bugs out of it before it reached the American market. Prius is not for every one, it is not the perfect car. But, this car goes further that most cars that cost twice as much and it needs little to no maintenance. That in my book is about perfect. JTM

 

My 2006 unit had a Pump Failure,(i'm not that familiar with the parts and terms), and was replaced by a dealer at no cost. But the car has never been the same since, with continious Lights coming up and occasionally losing power and becoming sluggish. It does go on and has never failed to start. There are also noises, like a high pitched sound and a hammering sound whenever the key is close. I am a bit tired of the car but probably would never be able to sell it. Any ideas?

 

You need to determine from the dealer which pump failed. The two are the Engine coolant pump which is the same as in a normal car, and the Electric pump that cools the electronics and the HSD (the equivalent of a transaxel plus the two electric motor-generators). If it was the Engine coolant pump, your engine may have been overheated. If it was the HSD coolant pump, the Hybrid components may have been overheated and damaged. There should be some error codes stored that can be read out by a Prius-aware OBD2 scanner. Get those codes and report them here so that some of the experts here can help.

JeffD

 

Help! I have a 2005 Prius, I just checked my Oil level (it was fine) and drove about 300 feet and had the Red triangle with ! come on, yellow engine light, and yellow (!) in a circle come on. The emergency break was not set, i reseated both the oil cap and dip stick, the coolant level was fine I had no choice but to drive home like this and there was no problems with either the electric or gas engines, the battery charged and discharged normally, and there were no odd sounds. I live in a rural area so I need to know if it is even a reasonable idea to drive it into town to get to the dealership.

 

I just starting having some weird issues pop up, where the battery would seem to drain very low as well as seem to drain fast and charge fast at times. In the 7 years (and only 45K miles) that I've owned it, I have never had all of the charge bars filled up, but now on occasion, all of them will fill. Lately, the engine will rev high, like the CVT is gearing very high (or is it low?), especially when first starting out (engine cold).

On Friday, I had a distinct lack of power at some points. The HV compartment fan ran very fast and the car would not use EV power even when going very slow (engine kept kicking in). Thinking that I was having a battery problem, I got the ScanTool SX and used PriiDash and checked the battery levels (on Sunday and this morning), and they all look great (within hundredths of each other). The inverter temps don't look out of place.

This morning, I had zero issues. I haven't had any warnings or messages from the system.

I'm stumped.

Thanks,
Keith
(2008 Prius)

 

I guess I should see if I can do the "reverse+brake" battery drain to see how quickly it goes down. In the Toyota diagnostic test, can they determine the actual capacity? Is there something in PriiDash that I could check?

Keith

 

I've charted the hvTB0x figures. Not sure what reasonable would be for these.


hvBTxx by Keith H., on Flickr

 

I find this a bit troubling, since it doesn't seem physically possible, the total voltage (also seen in the individual voltages) spike and drop at rather quick intervals:


hvV-soc by Keith H., on Flickr

 

Your Prius can momentarily pull/source 100 (130 in later Gen2 Prii) amp currents from/to the HV battery. If the individual module pairs have about 20 milliohms of series resistance, then 14 module pairs in series will total about 0.25 ohms so at 100 amps the voltage drop/increase will be 25 volts which is in line with your readings.

JeffD

 

Both T and V graphs seem OK. I heard that occasionally the battery system re-calibrates itself and appears weird. Could this be it? As mentioned in the other post try to collect data with plenty of acceleration and deceleration to compare the blocks like in this thread:
HV battery health check | PriusChat

 

What does the 'Problem' light or indicator on the display panel mean, on a 2008 Toyota Prius?.

 

Thank you, I'll check. It comes on intermittently.