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Status on Cars 1, 2, 3

Discussion in 'Generation 1 Prius Discussion' started by ronlewis, Sep 16, 2019.

  1. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

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    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Model:
    One
    These cars are sooo close, and yet still not there.

    My keeper was driving beautifully with its rebuilt battery, and then started throwing battery codes. Discussed in another thread.

    My son's car has been giving me a triangle/CEL but my ScanGauge is not picking up any codes. Otherwise, it seems to run fine, battery 300+V, SOC 60+%, temps good. I thought the inverter pump might not be working. Fluid didn't seem to be churning in the reservoir. When I got the bumper off, I saw that it was the newer version, turned the key, and it's working fine. Drove it around some, and after clearing the CEL 2-3 times with my reader, it has stayed off for about 10 miles of driving. But, it's done this before, and the CEL came back. I've ordered a VCI cable, and it's shipped. Still need to scavenge an XP laptop and labor through the install.

    The third car I'm currently working on is also seemingly running fine, but it throws a 3030 code, over and over, as fast as I clear it. I replaced the buss bar harness with sensors, but not the opposite side. Hopefully, when I get TIS operating, I can identify where the problem is.

    Misc: the door locks don't work on one car, I can't document the details, whether it's lock or unlock or both, all doors, which doors. But it's almost all that stuff. I remember seeing only the passenger front door "try" to lock, none of the others moved. But, that would seem to suggest the arm rest control module is all connected. The Windows work. Any tips on where to look for the problem?
     
  2. mroberds

    mroberds Member

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    You probably need one or more door lock motors. The one in the driver's door failed first on mine, because it gets used most often. When it started to go out, sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn't; you could see the manual lock button twitching and trying to move, but it wouldn't quite go all the way from "locked" to "unlocked", or vice versa.

    The other symptom you will get: if one or more of the doors is unlocked, and you try to lock the car with the remote, you will 1) hear the door locks clunk once, 2) all will be quiet for a couple of seconds, 3) the door locks will clunk again, 4) the parking lights won't flash.

    If you manually lock all the doors, using the button above the inside handle, and then try to lock the car with the remote, you will hear all the locks clunk once and the parking lights will flash.

    It took me a little while to figure out the above symptoms. I had always assumed that the parking lights always flashed whenever the car ran the door lock motors, but it's actually a little smarter than that. There is a switch inside each lock motor that can tell if the door is actually locked or not. The logic is that the car runs all four of the lock motors once and then looks at all four of the switches. If all four of them say "locked", then it flashes the parking lights. If all four of them don't say "locked", it pauses a couple of seconds, and tries running the lock motors again. If that makes all four of them say "locked", you'll get a parking-light flash; if not, the car gives up. In other words, the parking light flash tells you "I have successfully locked all the doors"; if the car doesn't think it all worked, you don't get the flash.

    The first time this happened, I thought I had a dying battery in the remote, and I tried a couple of fresh batteries before I figured out the problem was elsewhere.

    On mine, the driver's door failed first, and I replaced it. Eventually, all three other doors failed (at different times), and I replaced them too. Now the driver's door has failed again, so I just use the mechanical key to unlock it. :)

    The last time I looked, Toyota still sells the lock motors new, for $100ish each. There are some $20ish knockoffs floating around on Ebay and/or Amazon, but I've been told that those don't have the switch that reports the lock/unlock status. I can't remember if that means the parking lights never flash, or that it's easier to set off the alarm, but I remember there was something "off" about them.

    Replacing them involves taking the inner door panel off and fishing the old lock motor out of the door. I think you may have to unbolt part of the window channel, too, but it's been a while since I've done it. You don't need any weird tools; standard sockets and wrenches do it all. You might break a couple of the plastic pegs that hold the inner door panel to the door, but you can get reasonable aftermarket replacements at the car parts store - I think I got mine at either NAPA or Autozone.
     
  3. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

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    Vehicle:
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    Model:
    One
    Thanks. A door motor shouldn't be too hard. And my parts cars have plenty of those. As long as it's not riveted to the door like they do with the window motors some time.
     
  4. mroberds

    mroberds Member

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    It's bolted; I don't remember having to use the rivet gun. I think the motors are handed, different part numbers for the left and right doors. I don't remember if they are different for the front door and back door, but your friendly local parts fiche will tell you that.
     
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  5. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

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    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
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    It's not using the rivet gun, you just use bolts and nuts to put it back together. It's grinding the rivet off that's hard work, or at least it is if you don't have a grinder and try to beat it off with a chisel.
     
  6. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

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    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Model:
    One
    UPDATE:

    I received the warranty eplacement battery. I put the original in my keeper car and it ran perfect until the battery hiccupped. I decided to put this replacement today into my car that's throwing the 3030 code, to see if that would clear the code, and it did. I still have the 3rd car, the one throwing a CEL, but no code coming up on my SG and it seems to run fine. I could swap the new battery into it to confirm it doesn't have a battery issue, but manhandling these batteries in and out by myself is hard work. My back is barking tonight.

    Instead, I'd love to just diagnose what's wrong with this battery that I took out (it's not the failed core I have to return to the vender, that's still in the keeper car to be removed tomorrow). If I can fix it, without having to install it in the keeper car, scan it with TIS, take it out, fix it, and put it back in, I'd sure save a lot of work.

    Again, it is in the battery, nothing on the car is causing the issue. I used a handheld voltmeter to test each cell, forget the details, but almost all were just fine. I swapped in some stronger cells from my first core, then another module to replace one with a stripped buss stud. Should have been a strong set of nearly balanced cells. Then, I put a new OEM buss bar harness with sensors on, but I left the back side buss bar in place after removing and cleaning it up.

    BTW, based on the discussions I see here this battery is either a replacement or from Canada or both? It has 3 large labels on the top, covering most of the visible area.

    Since the 3030 code is a wiring issue (?), where are the possible locations on the battery that could be grounding out? I didn't examine the power supply(?) or ECU closely when I was swapping those modules and buss bar. Is it likely that the back side bass bar would break? It seems so basic.

    I expect that the correct answer to my questions is to get TIS - I'm working on that. Have my cable, trying to scrounge up an XP laptop but not having much CraigsList luck. Has anyone run TIS on a virtual XP machine? Would that defeat the purpose of using a separate laptop from a security perspective? I am low-tech, my current laptop runs Windows 7 Home. As I look at old XP laptops on Ebay, etc, I doubt any of them have battery life left, if you could even find new ones, they probably cost as much as the PC. I hat to have to run an extension cord out to the truck to keep the XP running while I diagnose the car. Doesn't let you run see live data while driving.

    But, if I get TIS going, how would I use it, if at all, to figure out what's wrong with this battery? I assume it will alert me to any module pair with low voltage, and I'd then look at those cells for wiring issues, or replacement. Would it point me to any of the other battery components? Are there any tests I can do without TIS? I have the battery out of the car right now. I feel like I should pop the top anyway just to have a look around and put the voltmeter on the cells again. Or anything else while it's out.

    I'd even have to think twice before not swapping in a power supply and ECU right now, rather than put this one I know is broken into the car again to run TIS. Only problem is I'd probably get those from my parts car's battery, which still means taking a battery out (save a couple of steps anyway) with the risk that those parts are no good either, with no way of knowing. Crazy stuff, hard decisions, but only because I'm a weak old man.
     
    #6 ronlewis, Sep 24, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 24, 2019
  7. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    What makes you think it is a short to ground? If P3030 is similar to P3030 in a Gen 2, I'd be looking for opens in the sensing wires, therefore using a ohmmeter on each send wire and checking for continuity.

    Don't think I can be much more help, Gen 1's are not my forte.
     
  8. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Model:
    One
    Sorry, I shouldn't have said that. I'm ignorant about electronics and just used that as a general term for "broken."

    Since all the sensor wires are brand new, part of the new harness, I hoped that eliminated any such issues. But, I'll look over them again. Was hoping someone knew of other places I might have bad wiring inside the battery. Thanks.
     
  9. prius_power

    prius_power Junior Member

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    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
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    Yep, I run Techstream in a Virtualbox VM with no issues. 9 times out of 10 though, I mostly just use Torque Pro and a bluetooth OBD2 adapter.
     
  10. ronlewis

    ronlewis Active Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2001 Prius
    Model:
    One
    Yeah, my old ScanGauge works fine for most stuff, and I have a TP/BT setup as well, but neither of those are reading the DTC being thrown by one of my cars. I also need to figure out what's wrong with the HV battery in another one - I'm getting a 3030 from inside the HV battery, but I've replaced the sensor harness and the cells are all charged. Does TP read the voltage for individual modules? SG will, I think, with the right Xprograms, but I don't have room to add any more. I'll look up Virtualbox, thanks.