New owner of '05 with only 200 miles

The Hybrid Automotive prolong charger guide shows benefits of discharging a module to bring it's usable capacity back. But from the pack being wired in a series and discharging with a load....wouldn't this potentially harm a cell in the module while discharging vs helping it bring back usable capacity?

I ask because I'm in the process of rebuilding a pack and from what I saw in techstream, I had 1 weak block. I replaced that block and discharged according to HA instructions.....but then I ended up with another weak block after a short drive. Would the discharging of the pack actually have harmed it to the point where another module would fail?

 

I think it might be wise to change the oil first. Was there any oil in it?

 

Good point. I hate tunnel vision!

Might as well check and, if necessary, replace all the other fluids too.

 

Some things are not stacking up in my mind from what you have said about the behavior of the car. It certainly sounds like the battery could be good, or it could be bad. Some the things you have said seem to contradict each other, such as:

Maybe, can you take a photo of the Energy Monitor screen and post, or even take a short video of the Energy Monitor screen while doing the force charge? It would be very helpful to see what you see.

FWIW, if this is happening:

then that says to me the car is being propelled by the electric motor and would not be happening if the HV was bad.

Look forward to hearing more of this "classic" car.

 

Apparently the car is indeed driveable. Fill up the tank, drive it down to one bar, refill it, calculate the mileage. If its under 35-40 than you can get a used battery off ebay under 1k. Well worth it for such a pristine car.

 

Yes, that is completely normal, when the car is warmed up. Read about the 5 stages of prius warm up in my sig for more information about how the HSD warms up.

What colour are the bars on the battery icon?

Any chance you can upload a photo?

 

The only thing that sounds weird is the fact the battery only shows 1 (purple?) bar always. Yes it is possible that the meter is broken, because otherwise everything else you have said, it sounds like the car is driving normally.

Until the battery shows a higher charge, I would encourage you to not keep trying to drive in EV. It is not the correct way anyway, as it places a higher demand on you HV battery (obviously). So, until you can connect it up to Techstream (VxDiag with Techstream) and see what the battery voltages and currents are for each block, I would encourage you to run the ICE to run as much as possible. If it wants to run in EV so be it, just don't try to make it happen for the moment.

You could try disconnecting the 12 V battery to reset all the ECUs. This will among other things force the metering on the HV to recalibrate.

The only other thing I would try is an external charge of the HV (using the HA conditioning charger, available in the PC shop or directly from Hybrid Automotive) and see what that shows after 24 hours on charge.

I don't know if there are any PCers in NJ that could help out.

PS, you haven't mentioned any warning lights on the dash, so assuming there are no lights–which is good.

 

You didn't start that engine with 9-year old oil in it, did you? Did you buy fresh oil? Did you say you were a mechanic?

There's no way I would drive a car with 9-year old oil in it! And all that "extra" oil has an expiration date, so that's no good. And are all those extra tires showing any small cracks in the sidewall rubber?

There's something fishy about this whole story..

Most of my buddies use flip-phones with no camera....

 

I smell a troll with out pic hard to believe!!!

 

Troll

 

In my youth, I sold motorcycles and came across two customers similar to this. One who did the whole "I'm going to buy a lifetime supply of parts" and then sold it about two years later and the other who had a garage that was more a shrine (I delivered that bike) with carpet and everything! In addition, I have a friend who's wealthy father amassed a very large collection of unopened boxed models (ships, planes, cars); so many they needed a large warehouse to store them all.

The original owner of the '05 sounds like a hoarder personality but with a much more clinical approach. The description of the '05 storage is a nearly textbook perfect way for long term storage.

 

Dang! I put at least 200+ miles on my car in just a few days...

A 2005!! Wow!

 

I bought my 09 Prius with 160k miles on it back in June. Runs great! But far as battery degrading, it's more of an age thing rather than mileage on the car. I should still get another few year's or so or maybe even far longer on this 7 year old car with its original battery.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

If you cannot drive at higher speeds and the soc is at 1 bar all the time, then the battery is bad.

200 miles is not the trip meter right, it's the actual odometer reading?

 

He didn't say he could not drive at high speed, he said that the ICE cuts in at 18 mph, which means that he is in EV until then. If the battery was bad, he could not do that. He also said he could drive for quite awhile with the ICE off, if he kept the speed at 18 mph.

Good point.

 

I don't know how much of this is accurate. OP claims to have driven several miles at 18mph without the gas engine turning on.

"But it does start fine and I can drive it for at least several miles at lower speeds, (not fast enough for the gas engine to come on)"

I can't even drive 1 miles on my BRAND NEW battery without the engine coming on.

I think we're getting punked

 

It all depends on the load. If the discharge load current is low enough, around 200mA is what we recommend, then there is no cell damage from having the polarity reversed for a while. If this is done at a high load (1A or more) like the hobby chargers often use, then yes the cells can and will be damaged by a polarity reversal event. What type of current load are you using to deep discharge the pack?

In close to 2,500 customers, we have had one other customer report that reconditioning his pack lead to a module showing weakness that it had not shown pre-reconditioning. He also may have left his 200W bulb on all the way to 0V, we're not sure (he couldn't remember either). If a module was borderline and/or weak enough that deep discharging from reconditioning brought about its demise, I'd say that is one you want to replace as well