Diagnosing a Gen 2 Prius that won't start...

You probably need a more capable scanner to read the codes there are some there The 12 volt if it's new and you know you have good 12 volts which probably is the case after the other battery in the jumper cables from the Honda. So now with the car sitting there and everything all lit up right under the driver side headlight is a little pancake pump that moves inverter fluid through the inverter bottom plate cooling the inverter which is not getting hot yet because it's not running but usually when the car is on that little pump will be vibrating put your hand on it is it undo the little reservoir next to the silver thing right in front of the driver under the hood you should be red fluid in it that's antifreeze it could be green pressed on it should be red Asian fluid no matter if you open that jug do you see Little ripples of the coolant moving in the jug and the pump humming No now look under the fuse box just for haha's and check the fuse called AM2 is it burnt No yes? That's just quick stuff to check to see if basic things are happening. But you really need the codes from a capable scanner to connect up to the vehicle and see what's really going on I'm sure there's going to be a hybrid battery code and a few others having somebody manages for you will get costly.

 

One of the first things you're going to need to do is repair the hybrid battery. After sitting for 2 years, there's a 99.99% chance there are one or more modules that have completely self-discharged and at least 50% of the rest are at such a low state of charge that they are effectively dead. I doubt the main relays are even shutting. The 12v battery will start up all the electronics, but a good HV battery is required to get permissives for shutting the main relays and starting the engine.

The dash issue could be something as simple as the common 'capacitor' failure or could be more involved.

A hybrid capable scanner or a copy of Techstream will help a tremendous amount.

 

Tech In Toyota world is all you will need It is a scanner and all of that The only thing that I'm shocked that it doesn't do is reference the manual to the codes and even take you right to the pages to troubleshoot the codes in the list and order that they pop up in tech It's actually to me quite funny we're not there yet We probably are but not in the handheld or walk around you probably have to go inside and hook up to the main computer at the dealer blah blah blah and to me that's just bunk. What should be going on now is when you own or have or license of tech and you scan your vehicle and all the codes pop up it should take you right to the manual with the pictures and the page numbers and all of that not yet maybe soon but that's all you'll need with your Toyota It's a scanner and everything If you can get it working right you have something for Toyota and Scion and Lexus.

 

Check all the fuses in the car, fuse box under the hood, and inside the car. Start by checking the AM2 fuse in the hood fuse box.

 

Techstream is the factory scantool software. It can do "everything" that's possible.

Any versions you BUY are some form of bootleg copy and can take some "fiddling" to get the installation functioning. Plus the cheap OBD cables sometimes work ok, sometimes not.

The official software from Toyota is a subscription ( "X" dollars for "Y" days of function).

Another option is to read this thread that reviews several scantool apps and devices. Some are capable of scanning all systems on a Gen2 Prius.

Many here on the forums have Dr Prius just to monitor HV battery daya in addition to a more capable (all systems) scantool.

https://priuschat.com/index.php?posts/3290690

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

No generally people first start off with a basic scanner like something from advance Auto Menards a brand made by a company called Innova they make a very decent scanner in the 70 or $80 range that will read most of your ABS codes and most normal p codes and the like It will not get into specific weird codes that are specific to the Prius but generally most of the time you're not going to be getting that far into it You're going to get the basic codes find out what's going on and then turn it over to service people generally a few of us here will carry it to the next degree and so on. But to answer your question more than likely the VCI cable that you have isn't squat and you will go through many of them trying to get one that's worth a crap seriously there's you could read I don't know 10 hours of text about this very thing right here on this site The Cable that came with my tech computer from the Toyota dealership is a CF-13 toughbook with Windows 7 on it and tech loaded on it and this xhorse red-ended OBD2 plug with a black cable on it that runs to a USB-A terminal that plugs into the old CF-13 toughbook that was the de facto standard from the Toyota dealer that xhorse cable. I think can still be had it's made by another manufacturer now or something like that for a hundred and something dollars not the $25 you want to pay. Once you have the VCI cable worked out everything else may fall into place if you got tech installed on your whatever computer you're using. One of the guys will be along in a minute to tell you the name of the cable that we know works but it's very costly I want to say it's maybe made by tactictrix or some name like that but it is about 180 to 249 cable so generally when people hear that that holds up the program people don't realize that technicians that are in the field with this stuff that own this stuff they pay $17 or $1,800 for a computer with the software on it the cable to hook up to the car and what have you maybe even more than that if they buy them brand new the minute they come out at full retail.

 

Did you install the mini-vci cable driver?

Did you install Techstrean on a Winvdow 10 64-bit computer?

 

That's a very good catch did you install the VCI cable drivers that is seemingly a thing although I've seen the exhorse and other cables the minute you plug them into a computer The computer recognizes him mine I can take into my house computer that's never done anything with automotive software plug it into the ASB port and it recognizes exhorse blah blah blah whatever driver and it's ready to go It just won't reach out to the car.

 

No, Techstream V18 will also work on Windows 11.

I wrote the post below several months ago in a different thread.

 

Have you got the MVCI VIM selected? If you have, you should see something like what is in the status line in the image below:




If something else is selected, select the MVCI VIM from this menu:




I hope that helps.