dead prius

What GAS station did the contaminated gas come from??? Was it a name brand or off brand???

 

My dealer was able to fix my car today. They do think that I ran out of gas, but couldn't give me an answer as to why the car wouldn't start after I tried putting in two gallons that AAA send with their emergency towing service. Below is a quote from my invoice:

[font=Courier New:22dd09cb3d] CUST STATES THAT VEHICLE QUIT WHILE DRIVING WOULD
RESTART BUT WOULD NOT DRIVE
HAD ENGINE CODE P3193, HV ECU CODE P0A0F, INFO 533,
GATEWAY AND IMMOBILIZER CODES
RUN ALL TESTS. MOST LIKELY RUN OUT OF GAS, REFUEL AND RESET
FUEL GUAGE LEVEL. RESET CODES. OP CODE DP1699Z[/font:22dd09cb3d]

The dealer also performed the SCC 40D work, which I thought I wasn't affected and would have figured that they would have done that on the last oil change. If I did run out of gas after only 20 miles from the beep and blinking of the last fuel bar, then it could be possible that the Prius gas gauge could be affected by long periods of driving the car at highway speeds. I usually drive 40 miles after the Add Gas indicator while I watch the Consumption screen for any moments of poor mileage. My Consumption tank mpg was ~49.5 when I experienced my problems. I had driven all but 6 miles of the 505 that I had put on that tank on Monday, stopping once for lunch. I had read about someone else running out of gas quickly after the Add Gas indicators while driving long distances. This could have been my problem.

 

one time in my wife's 2k1 Prius I went around a 360 on ramp to a freeway and had only on bar showing and got the big exclamation mark and it wouldn't go away. Took it to the dealer and they were to busy check it and I stopped at a gas station on the way home and low and behold it went away after I filled it up.

 

bad gas answer would be plausible in that its normal for a car to run several miles with bad gas without any problems as gas and water wouldnt mix. gas would float on top since it is lighter and would account for car failing to run as the water ratio increased.

i dont understand why the battery was drained unless it was drained by you when the car stopped running. you say it decelerated to a crawl so you did some driving on battery alone. it sounds to me with all the disassembly your car went through that the battery was removed and recharged more as a precaution since its removal was probably necessary to remove the gas tank anyway.

i think now that we have your error codes we can figure out part of what went on anyways

 

Jill:

well i for one am glad that it appears to be an outside source that is causing your problems. After all, the Prius is a new model with no reliability data and i hope that the car turns out to be all that Toyota says it is.

I have been a life long Toyota user having only twice not had a Toyota to drive for less than 6 months each time. So i have every confidence that I am getting the best deal for my dollar not to mention cutting edge technology.

Let us know if you notice anything different or unusual about your car. and i would definitely be interested in how the gas got contaminated.

 

There IS a charger for the Traction Battery. They just have to buy one

 

Dear jillg:

You said:

"During this process they drained the hybrid battery until it wouldn't restart the car. The tech said it was "dead" and they took my hybrid battery out & put it in another Prius to recharge the battery. This supposedly entailed removing the entire battery pack & taking apart the back end of my car -- NOTE: the tech said no charger exists for the new Prius although there is a charger for the classic. He wasn't sure this would work, but it did. Once they got it running they replaced the mass air sensor because the check engine light wouldn't go off. All told the process took about 10 hours, hence the $600 labor bill. "

Most remarkable! They told you that the hybrid battery wouldn't start your car, but they put it into a DIFFERENT Prius to charge it? How then, if it was so dead it couldn't start yours, did it start that OTHER Prius - so that OTHER Prius could THEN re-charge it?

Then the tech said they used the charger for the classic to successfully charge your hybrid battery! Why did they do that if they had already charged it in the other Prius? Why didn't they do that INSTEAD OF swapping two batteries for $600??

I'm willing to believe you had a dead hybrid battery that was charged with a classic charger, but NOT that they took it out of your car and charged it from dead by installing it in another Prius. That other Prius would ALSO have been impossible to start on your dead battery, so it wouldn't run to be able to charge it.

I understand that it costs $600 to swap two hybrid batteries among two Priuses. My guess is that they tried the swap without thinking too much about it first; it didn't work, so they then charged your battery with a classic charger.

THEN they needed YOU to pay for the labor they wasted on swapping the hybrid battery with the one in the other Prius. They have some nerve charging you for their learning experience (that a dead hybrid battery won't start ANYONE's Prius).

It may be time to start checking serial numbers to see if your hybrid battery is your original one. It's MOST likely that they only swapped those batteries ONCE. That's a smoking gun for your case.

Mechanics have to experiment with Priuses because Toyota doesn't tell THEM anything either! When they do, the shop manager has to tell the owner whom to bill for the wasted time, and presto! YOU get a $600 bill for charging a battery that takes a few minutes with the right charger!

I've been struggling with Toyota myself - you know the routine, from number to number and back around again between polite people who don't know anything - to pry loose information on how to recharge a dead hybrid battery, and I've so far hit such a brick wall that I'm thinking it's time to file suit for the information!

Best,

phil

 

Sounds like that dealer has a crappy relationship with Toyota, or maybe they're just dopes. Either way, go to a different dealer.