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Prius won't idle properly

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by oil_burner, Jan 2, 2018.

  1. oil_burner

    oil_burner Active Member

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    Something strange is happening with my idle. When the hybrid battery has a good charge and I finish my drive, I put the vehicle into park, the engine is unable to make up it's mind whether to shutdown or continue idle. So it will kick on, then immediately shutoff after 2 seconds of idling, then kick on again, and shutoff, repeating this for about 5 times in a row before finally shutting off.

    No trouble codes at all showing. I do have a strong smell of exhaust/oily vapours which I think is an exhaust leak. I recently double checked the PCV valve and crank case breather hoses, made sure they were tightly fitted with no leaks. Any ideas?
     
    #1 oil_burner, Jan 2, 2018
  2. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    Does it do that when your climate control is off?
     
    #2 JC91006, Jan 2, 2018
  3. oil_burner

    oil_burner Active Member

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    I have never tried turning the climate control off, but when I park after a long drive and this issue happens my coolant is still hot and I have plenty of battery power left to run the climate, as it happens even with green bars showing on the battery. I think if I didn't have enough battery to run the climate control then the car should leave the engine idling for much longer to charge?
     
    #3 oil_burner, Jan 2, 2018
  4. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    That does sound strange. How many times has this happened? You can try disconnecting your 12v battery for a minute (check the voltage too) and reset the car. Maybe it'll fix itself.

    Is the car's maintenance up to date?
     
    #4 JC91006, Jan 2, 2018
  5. oil_burner

    oil_burner Active Member

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    it happens quite frequently although I don't always notice it happening unless my torque app is open and I can see the rev's. The 12V has been disconnected a few times, no change.
     
    #5 oil_burner, Jan 2, 2018
  6. SFO

    SFO Senior Member

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    Which part of Canada are you in or near, and what has the ambient temperature been lately?
     
    #6 SFO, Jan 2, 2018
    Mendel Leisk likes this.
  7. uart

    uart Senior Member

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    Does it only do it when you have near full SOC on the battery (green bars showing)?

    If so then it could be spinning the engine to get rid of excess charge. With a good battery it should only do this when it's at all 8 green bars and the battery is really maxed out. When the battery gets pretty worn then it can start happening at only 7 green bars too (when my previous battery got old it would never even get to 8 bars anymore, and would instead start maxing out on 7 bars).
     
    #7 uart, Jan 2, 2018
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  8. oil_burner

    oil_burner Active Member

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    the ambient temperature has been around -10C or so I would say pretty mild. I have never really paid attention to whether it will do the same thing on blue bars, I guess I will make note of it the next time.
     
    #8 oil_burner, Jan 2, 2018
  9. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    Whenever a car doesn't idle correctly, first thing I do is clean the throttle body.
     
    #9 JC91006, Jan 2, 2018
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  10. fotomoto

    fotomoto Senior Member

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    Also, do you drive on a hill right before your driveway? Only happen with the app connected? How long have you owned the car? Miles?
     
    #10 fotomoto, Jan 2, 2018
  11. uart

    uart Senior Member

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    Then at this stage I would go with the default assumption that it's just spinning the engine to dump some charge. This is part of normal operation for these cars btw. When the battery has regenerated more charge than it knows what to do with then it will use the electric motor to just spin the engine around (without any fuel injection), for no other reason than to suck down some of the charge from the HV battery.

    It will also do it when you are driving but you often wont notice it. So mostly you only notice it when you're stopped. Particularly at the bottom of a big hill.
     
    #11 uart, Jan 2, 2018
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