Prius gen 3 2010 - high pitched whine - rear right hub etc off.

Combed the internet, about half the hits are from here - good, expected - but no definitive answer.

Situation: My Prius bog-standard gen 3 2010 model, ran fine before I started working on it (yes, wink), and when I discovered I had been almost entirely reliant on the regen braking, obvs I started into the job, starting at the rear. Car up on axle stands, chocked at front, and a separate pair of ramps are sideways under the car, ‘in case’ our recent winds moved it. All fine.

Rear right bearing removed, therefore, brake disk removed, brake piston tried to pop out, I jammed a piece of wood in to imitate some resistance (disk corroded to death, north of England salted roads, plus it used to live in Brighton, right near the beach).

It was actually all fine in this state, I was warming the car until the weather at least stopped raining (pause for laughter, it’s England), every couple of days. No noises, let it charge traction battery and used the aircon to bring temp up. All interior lights etc seem fine.

12v battery, stop-start type, I replaced when I bought car this January 2023, so,nearly a year old. Have not gotten to testing disconnected voltage, but have disconnected the battery.

The whine began before I got anywhere near it this morning early - the -4 deg C cold spell seems to have triggered something. If I hadn’t bought a recent 12v battery, I’d point at that…same ‘park on a level parking space and apply parking brake firmly’ etc comes up as when it was dud.

I’ve stuffed the brake end of the cable back in to the rear right brake caliper that is still attached to the hydraulic line. All other brakes are untouched but will need overhauled too, after this irritant is sorted.

Any ideas? I literally pulled every ABS fuse - no difference, high-pitched whine still there. I disconnected the 12V battery at the earth side, and pulled the special big orange traction battery safety plug out too.

The whine continued unaltered, which surprised me.

My feeling is, it’s almost like it’s a battery-backed-up alarm, but it’s a constant high pitch.

The brake booster, I think, is a bit of a deeper ‘grrrr’ sound? After pushing the brake pedal (hydraulic) a few times, it murmurs as expected, replacing boost I suppose.

I have found a video - not very good - that does at least depict the exact sound, saves me recording it:

[And below, is the sound of the brake actuator, which is distinctly lower-pitched as you likely know…

]

That’s it. Slightly stunned disconnecting both traction and 12v battery doesn’t stop it. They were disconnected for several minutes, no perceptible change to the high-pitched whine. The multiple warning lights, a set of icons representing all possible positions of the gear lever, flashing on and off, did not happen until in desperation I disconnected both batteries.

Phfft. And yes, I had the key fob sometimes in my pocket while the rear right brake was in bits. Mainly to turn the engine over every few days - there really has been so much rain it has set records here in the UK, so my tarpaulin is not able to handle that plus the winds.

Car has done only 48,000 miles, which actually seems believable. But, now, here’s my list:

1 - disconnect the 12V battery and check the voltage. The car is behaving as if this is duff - but the traction battery is 7 bars or so ie nearly full, after me running it, which tbh it didn’t even really need.

2 - try the AC off, did this actually

3 - clear leaves, check for blocked vents anywhere, did this too

4 - Assemble the rear right brake with the new parts I have (!). A but obvious, except for other commitments.

Truly, I just want the nuisance to neighbours to be removed, some sleep at the front of their homes where the car is. I am down to repairing the car (not ideal timing, I have use if another temporarily, daughter’s), hoping this is it, or stuffing foam into the engine bay to try and attenuate it the sound.

I have major other tasks, or it’s a perfect time to do the job, sunny, clear, cold is fine if I wrap up - I am 60 with arthritis, but I ain’t weeping about that. I can layer up and get on, it;d just be nice not to be a darned nuisance.

Thanks for any help - and for all the past help too.

 

Ok so first, thanks for the reply, I will read it in a sec after I do this update.

1 - High-pitched whine - FIXED.
Charging the 12V battery fixed this alarm or siren. It may or may not be intended as a battery state alarm, but a low 12V battery voltage trips this alarm. The 12V battery must have been really run-down, because even my modern style of rapid charger/intelligent charger took over 4 hours to charge it fully. It sat at ‘75%’ for ages.

This alarm only stopped after about 30 hours of emitting sound. I presume it’s little backup battery finally ran down.

This type of alarm usually has a built-in backup battery for obvious reasons (the 12V has reached an unreliable state), same as car alarms probably, the lowered state of 12V is taken as a possible incursion, ie same as total loss, and while security alarms under the car wing or bonnet, are made to knock off after 20 minutes, this Prius ‘battery low’ alarm does not. That’s the nuisance element, and it is fixed, so thanks to here and elsewhere on Prius chat for informing my actions on that.

2 - The dash warning of ‘Parking brake malfunction…’ - Remains an issue.
‘Parking brake malfunction….place on level parking place’ dashboard message, remains on. This then is to do with the rear right brake job I was paused on for weeks while the weather and other issues took precedence, probably.

3 - The blinking of the array of icons on the top dash representing ALL the possible positions of the transmission lever, still blinks when the starting button/power up has occurred.

4 - Cannot start the car although I can power it up and operate wipers etc. I just wanted to warm it up regularly now it’s winter, as I had been doing fine, until the battery state alarm/low 12V battery happened.


NOW…
As the Prius is on axle stands, it is possible to interpret the ‘place on level parking space’ dash warning, as my having the rear of the car quite a bit higher than the front, which is on the ground with the front wheels chocked. I think it’s a red herring but can’t entirely rule it out.

THINGS I’VE DONE SINCE THE LOW 12V BATTERY CAUSED THE HIGH-PITCHED ALARM…

- charged the 12V battery, after disconnecting it. It’s less than 12 months old. As mentioned, it needed it and this has stopped the whining alarm sound. Reconnected it and no more high-pitched whining.

- Pulled some fuses and put them back (but there’s an asterisk to that!) - before deciding to charge the battery, somewhat in panic - specifically 1, 5, 43, 45. Anything marked as ABS, which was that list of four. The plastic underbonnet fusebox cover had a bewildering imprinted moulded ‘key’ as to fuse locations and purpose. This didn’t matter as I had a screenshot of the fuse layout from somewhere online…then I came to put them back in, and realised while I got 1 and 5 put back in the correct places, there’s a low confidence level about 43 and 45.

That’s because I just ‘remembered’ where they came from, and 1 and 5 are from top left, flanking two relays, but 43 and 45 were in my mind ‘clumped together’ down low in the fusebox. And, unfortunately there are two places they can fit together like that!

So, I am putting a ‘pin’ in this possible error, but it might be I got it correct. Some fuseboxes, simply don’t have metal contacts in slots not used, unfortunately, both the possible slot positions for these two fuses, have metal contacts. There that sits. It won’t do any harm for me to temporarily move these fuses, and try powering-up again, but let’s hold this irritation in abeyance for now.

- Attached a Solar Panel-powered 12V battery charger, after charging the battery fully. It is sitting on one part of the back seat with thin wires that come with it, leading to the battery in its rear right corner of the trunk/boot area. It’s about 5 Watts max output. Made for exactly this purpose and sold by the UK’s ‘Automobile Association’.

- Partially reassembled to rear right brake I had removed the rotten disk and that had popped the piston almost entirely out, me having blocked it when I noticed, with a plank of wood. I have properly screwed the piston back in, with the exact tool recommended in this forum, the little ‘cube’ and then had to move to a more upmarket tool, because obviously the piston kept pushing out, every time I went to look for a thicker but of wood to act as a brake pad/disk substitute to ‘fool’ the system into thinking it’s attached etc.

So, it’s that set with Right-hand threaded and Left-hand threaded screw-in tool, and a curved plate that fits in the calliper, and the magnetic attachments that have something like what fits the Prius rear right piston notches.

That’s it. I will read any replies and respond to any suggestions I implement, feed the result back here.

Thanks so much to all, this site is a monumental resource. Any actions I took, and that have partially resolved matters, are due to what I’ve read here, be they specifically exactly to do with my issues, or perhaps simply emphasise the importance of this or that - specifically, the 12V battery state being a common source of multiple issues. Back later!

 

UPDATE Sunday evening 3rd December, 2023. Pretty much fixed & understood this problem or problems now.

It began with a high-pitched whine - apparently North American Prius gen 3 models may not have this alarm. It goes off when the 12V battery is low, whether that’s its actual purpose, I cannot say.

Dashing around to try and shut this up I pulled 4 fuses - and initially presuming WRONGLY that a 12V battery specially sold for this vehicle and stop-start, and the correct Japanese post sizes etc would still be fine, didn’t help. No amount of pulling fuses etc attenuated the noise, but after 36 hours, it finally shut up, the 12V battery was disconnected for about 24 of those.

I pulled 2 30 Amp ones, and numbers 1 and 5 (top left as you look under the hood/bonnet)…numbers 1 and 5, easier to remember, I put them back correctly, per the embossed diagram on the underside of the fusebox cover…the two 30-Amp fuses, I bungled. Having found they did not shut up the noise being emitted, I at least noted I was unsure I’d replaced them properly. They were for AMP (audio system amplifier etc), and IGCT functions, which may also involve ICG 2 (the shifter!), which I noticed afterward, had all icons flashing up on the dash.

The battery got charged while I mulled over having maybe mis-placed the two big 30-Amp value fuses, and suddenly the ‘P malfunction…level parking space’ error disappeared. The whine was also gone by this time. But it was into the next day, and the battery had gone flat again despite huge charging with a very good charger. It’s suspect, I don’t doubt the car is fine, it’s this battery.

Leaving me next day with what I now know were self-induced faults:
- those wrongly-placed 30 Amp fuses took a day or so to figure, from ebay images and other online resources. Nobody seems to use those two slots below the ‘wire link’ circled in red in my image I might be able to upload, so I now replaced the 30A fuses in their correct slots.

- I had also removed the big orange safety plug from the traction battery, and the more I read, the more I realised I probably had not pushed it in, rotated the handle, then slid it a quarter inch or so, like it needed to seat it properly back in place. I redid it, to my satisfaction.

The battery was still flat, so to even open the car easily - and I wanted to warm it cos of snow/ice/damp - I used a small Lithium-ion motorcycle battery, in the jump-start location we all know now.

The only fault I was left with once this was done, was a ‘check hybrid system message’ which I now know is a hangover error code from having messed with the orange plug and it will apparently disappear if the 12V battery is disconnected OR the signal cable connector (white, into the +ve battery terminal moulding), is pulled out for ten minutes.

As I was going to charge the battery yet again for the 2nd time in 36 hours, I knew that should be enough to clear that leftover error msg.

SHORT version: my 12V battery is a dud, after just 11 months, first really cold spell, below freezing, I have put a note into the supplier, I await response - it is £193 now, I bought it for £75 in January! (Apparently we have just 6% inflation)…this simple thing, caused the usual ‘P malfunction…’ etc error on dash, the piezo-electric whine sound related to low battery it seems (in europe), then I made mistakes.

All the faults stemmed from that one single issue - some later error codes on the dash, all shifter icons flashing, me incorrectly messing with orange traction battery plug, the ‘P’ button by the shifter having its LED flash, etc etc.

I call this closed, and thank anyone who was able to help, and it is just unfortunate I happened to be having the rear brake in bits at the time for repairs - this had nothing to do with the issue, or the error code being flung up, despite the error code seemingly being spot-on regards the Parking Brake system

Leave with a question though: has anybody ever actually had an issue, that the ‘P malfunction…level ground’ appeared for and WAS really solved by parking the vehicle on level ground, and properly applying the Parking Brake?! It seems to be a catch-all for low 12V battery state…in which case, the obvious is, couldn’t Toyota just make the dashboard say that instead.

Thanks again to this forum. The rest of the sources I hit, like youtube, for solutions, were more than 50% red herrings. Step on the footbrake this number of times, press the start button this number of times, and so on.