I blew up the inverter????

Ginny...any update from the new dealer? My fingers are crossed.

 

Ginny: I'm also missing my daily soap opera update. Any news from the second dealer?

 

It has turned into quite a circus. For some reason the "bad" dealer has dug his heels in. Maybe were missing some info here as I don't think this dealer could treat everyone like this or Corporate would have his nice person. Her inference is Corporate supports the bad dealer. Maybe there's some obvious electrical damage thats pointing to wrong polarity the bad dealer can stand by and maybe the original tow truck driver hosed Ginny on the second charge.
No matter what she's hosed. She won't get anywhere in court. Corporate is not helping her. TV Station coming to her rescue? Don't think so.
She'll never be able to sell this car not working right. There's reality here.

As Patrick correctly pointed out she must get that car on the road again.
That won't be too bad if its just the inverter.

If it was me I'd get a Scan gauge overnighted.....pull the codes herself......let us help her with the codes. its as easy as plugging in a hair dryer. Find out exactly what is wrong. At this point I would assume everyone is lying to her. Not sure why but this is how she's painting this to us. This latest dealer seems to be helping her but that will turn ugly too when it comes down to the $$$$.

Hopefully it will just need an inverter. Hopefully. Thats not too bad. I just checked ebay and there's 3 of them second gen for $800. One guaranteed. I checked my Prius manual and its not to bad to replace the inverter. I'm not a mechanic and I would have no problem. But I got a bitchin' set of tools. Lots of cables to disconnect. Drain the coolant. No big deal. Looks like maybe 4 beers for me. And I'm old. Its not as bad as say replacing a clutch on a manual car. Man thats work!!! Plus you get to wear big rubber gloves! Woo Hoo!

Pay some tech $500 worst case to replace it. $500 will get a Toy mechanic over there on a Saturday side work all day long. Maybe even cheaper.Not greasy at all. And you never have to bend over. Plenty of competent young lads out there hurting for bread. Back on the road for $1700. Move on..lesson learned.

I'd be damned paying a dealer $5000 +. Thats insane. I'd burn that car to the ground before paying some douche bag dealer $5K.
She will have to take control of this herself or be at a dealers mercy. And they usually have none.

Here we go:

New Aux battery---just because... $150.
Scan gauge $150
Chiltons service manual $20
Used Inverter $800
Labor $ 500
Misc parts: coolant etc $50

I'm ball parking $1700. total out the door. Thats not to horrific. Good luck girl.

 

Hi Ginny,

Thanks for the update. Glad to hear that you at least got a discounted parts price. Could you pls post DTC that were logged and provide a list of all replaced parts, especially any fuses.

I suspect that arbitration or small claims court will not provide much relief. Your position will be that you and the tow truck guy properly jumped the car.

Toyota's position will be that the inverter is a reliable part. Their service failure data shows the inverter usually needs to be replaced only if it overheats (due to a failed inverter coolant pump) or if an owner incorrectly jumps the car. Since in your case the failure happened soon after the car was jumped, it is reasonable to infer that your car was incorrectly jumped.

PriusChat is a great repository of owner issues - however I don't think you'll find another story similar to yours (where the owner claims that the car was properly jumped and a failure resulted). In any event, if you decide to pursue this, best of luck to you.

 

No.

I think you're out of luck with this. With the passage of time and all the hands that have been on the evidence it will be impossible to prove what failed when, or who did what wrong at what time.

 

I liked my price better but glad your rolling down the road again. But Dearest please be aware that you have a ticking time bomb in the back seat in that you have that pesky aux battery (the small one that boots up the car) thats been dead alot of times and jump started more. Most car batteries don't last long after that. Make a car batt stone dead a few times and it gets stupid. Or horrors gets a bad cell which can damage the inverter.

Do yourself a favor and spend a little more and get a fresh aux battery in there. Also look around for "Jaymans" posts concerning installing a battery "minder" which is a small battery charger you plug in whilst not using the car that keeps that aux battery freshly charged and conditioned at all times and shuts off when fully charged.Will extend that aux battery life many years. You cannot let this car sit. There's to much electronics going on.

You don't want to end up back at the end of some jumper cables again do you?

:drum:

 

The scangauge doesn't pull non-generic codes properly, it just
comes back with P0000 all the time.
.
_H*

 

Agreed, before winter replace that little 12V. That one will bite you in the first really frigid spell if it has been fully discharged before. In other cars I've tried to limp by on normal 12V lead/acid wet cells that have been fully discharged and they just aren't worth hanging onto when the weather either gets really hot or really cold. They don't fully recover and end up biting you at the worst possible time.

Best wishes, Ginny, I've learned alot from listening to your dilemna.

 

If you have a choice, I would go the small claims court route if I were you, especially if you can get a jury in small claims court in your state. Arbitrators are like contract judges, hired and selected by the parties. You will not know who to pick for an arbitrator; Toyota's attorneys will. If you do arbitrate, you will almost certainly not be able to have the case tried again in court if you are not happy with the result. Most states have arbitration statutes that only allow a court to reverse or vacate the arbitrator's decision on very limited grounds, for instance, fraud.

 

Note that the OP informed us that the 12v battery was replaced by the dealer during the trouble shooting process and was not in the car during any of the situations requiring a jump.

A bad 12v battery will not damage the inverter. A reversed polarity jump start attempt may blow fuses, and damage the inverter and then some. Extreme caution is essential when jumping the Prius.

 

Use your sister's zip and search values on Kelly Blue Book for her area private sales. Then list on Craig's list for her area. You shouldn't have any problems selling it. All Prii are the same so no problem with emissions in case anyone tries to tell you differently. The Prius doesn't need to be smogged in CA for registration.

 

Hello everyone. I believe this is my second post here so I'm a newbie, and indeed my Prius is still under 1k mileage.

I don't mean to hijack Ginny's thread -- and I didn't know whether I should start another one. Ginny, I'm very sorry for all of the headache and hassle that you've had to go through with what is essentially still a new vehicle, especially of a reputable brand as Toyota.

But after reading through *all* of the posts, I have a few concerns/questions about charging the Prius battery if just one mistake can damage such an expensive unit. This really hits home because I have only had my Prius for a week, and over the weekend someone asked me *already* if I could help jump start their battery. Fortunately, I responded that I had just gotten the car and didn't know if I should attempt it given the hybrid nature of the vehicle, and fortunately again, they had a friend who was about to drive around who could do the charging -- so they just borrowed my cables!

1) What is the safest way to charge the battery -- from the front, or directly applied to the battery in the back?

2) Should the negative cable be removed (as per the manual) regardless of where the battery is charged (front or back)? (Seems like removing the cable would negate the rational for charging from the front if it indeed has to be removed when charged from the front).

3) If jump-started by another vehicle, is it very likely spikes from that other vehicle will damage the Prius inverter?

4) Should the donor vehicle and the Prius be started up as with a typical non-hybrid jump?

5) Is it just better to carefully trickle-charge the Prius at < 3amps regardless of whether from front or back?

6) What happens if you attempt to charge another car's battery and crank up both cars? (I realize there's not enough juice in the Prius battery to charge the other battery, but does it cause damage?)

7) After connecting cables to the Prius (battery or front post), will allowing the other 2 ends of the cables to come into contact accidentally fry the inverter?

8) What is this other "slow charge" method someone has mentioned? How can that work if the sockets are off when the car is off?

9) Is there any chance that someone will actually produce a "safety valve" and sell it (maybe as a group buy) to protect against reverse polarity?

I know -- just make sure I don't reverse that polarity. But it seems from the above that other things can happen as well to damage the inverter and other parts.

Ryan

 

Hi Ryan,

The safest way to charge the 12V battery is to first remove it from the car. Since most owners will not bother to exert that effort, then the next safest way is to disconnect the negative terminal cable, then recharge the battery, connecting directly to its terminals, at 3A or less.

Some owners will be concerned about losing radio station and nav settings, and will be content to charge the battery while it remains connected to the vehicle. The problem with this is the charger may produce voltage spikes that the battery does not absorb - especially if a low-current setting is not used.

Regarding offering a jump start to another owner, the safest thing to do is to carry an auxiliary unit for that purpose. If you are a risk taker then you can connect the jump start cables directly to the 12V auxiliary battery, keeping the Prius IG-OFF. (You do not want the Prius READY, to avoid the possibility of blowing fuses.) This works if the other vehicle just needs a slight boost. If the other vehicle's battery is really dead, then you risk damaging the Prius 12V battery.

If you have the jumper cables attached directly to the battery then short the other ends, the only damage caused will be to the battery. If you are connected to the dedicated positive jump start terminal and short the other ends, then you will blow fuses.

Note that if the Prius 12V auxiliary battery is quite discharged, a regular battery charger may refuse to produce charging current. In that case, you can try jumpstarting the Prius, hoping that by leaving it READY for an hour or so, the 12V battery will charge up sufficiently.

 

Excellent -- thank you Patrick. I will remove the battery before I charge it -- it's worth it in order to save the possible loss of 3.5 or 5K for an inverter. Although I suppose I must still be careful not to drop a wrench on both terminals or something stupid (which will just blow fuses, correct?) -- and to reinstall the battery with the proper polarity as well.

If I may ask a follow-up: When charging the battery with it completely removed, can it still be charged via another vehicle started up or are spikes still likely to damage it? I guess what I'm asking is, should I have an auxilliary unit not only to charge someone else's battery, but for charging the battery in the Prius as well. It sounds as if you're saying that's really the safest way to go on both counts.

Thanks again,

Ryan

 

When your 12V battery is removed, you can safely charge it just as you would any other 12V car battery.

As for jumping other cars, in addition to the above warnings, the 12V battery in the Prius is very small - more like a motorcycle battery. I wouldn't use it to jump another car unless it's a matter of life and death.

Tom

 

2 more brief questions if I may, in response to Patrick and qbee42:


1) Patrick wrote:

"If you have the jumper cables attached directly to the battery then short the other ends, the only damage caused will be to the battery. If you are connected to the dedicated positive jump start terminal and short the other ends, then you will blow fuses."

Does "blowing fuses" include the danger of wrecking the inverter as well? Or just the fuses only?


And,

2) qbee42 wrote:

"When your 12V battery is removed, you can safely charge it just as you would any other 12V car battery."

Would this guarantee 3A or less during the charge?


I apologize for all the questions, but I just want to be sure I do this right (and hopefully help any other newbies out as well).

Regards,

Ryan

 

Hi Ryan,

If you try to charge the Prius battery by having jump cables connected to another vehicle, then you have no control over the charging current applied to the Prius battery. Application of a heavy charging current may damage the Prius battery; note the warning label applied to the top of the battery that specifies the maximum charging current (IIRC, ~4A or so.) Therefore the best way to charge the Prius battery is by using a battery charger with a low current setting, such as 2A.

If you were to short the jump cables attached to the positive jumpstart terminal and a ground point, then that should blow the DC to DC converter fuse link (assuming the car is READY) and maybe the fuse located in the positive terminal fuse block attached to the battery.

This should not damage the inverter itself. However, recall that this string started as a discussion about an inverter which should not have failed (given Ginny's story) but nevertheless did.

Regarding physical removal of the battery vs. disconnecting the negative cable only: the reason that removing the battery is preferred is to avoid vehicle damage in case something happens to the battery (i.e., an explosion) during the charging process. This is unrelated to damaging the inverter or other electrical systems.

 

Thank you Patrick. And ... hopefully the Prius battery isn't more subject to an explosion than other auto batteries. :/


Thanks again for your responses -- this is the route I will take should I encounter a "dead" battery issue.