My wife's Prius freaked out last night (Its the inverter)

Well, my wife's '05 Prius freaked out last night. She's down in South Carolina visiting her family, so I don't know exactly what happened, but it sounds suspiciously like the "stalls on highway" issue. However, since we bought her car in at the beginning of December, I wouldn't expect it to be that unless Toyota's fix for that problem didn't really fix it.

She tells me that she had just gotten off the highway onto another road that might as well be a highway (divided, 55 mph, but not limited access), and the dashboard lit up along with something on the MFD. She was apparently still driving it as she called me about it describe what happened, because she eventually told me that it felt like the engine wasn't running and she was running off the battery. I had her switch to the Energy screen and she told me the battery was down to one red bar, so I told her to pull over and have it towed to the dealer.

After she pulled over, I told her to turn it off and on again to see if any of the errors cleared. She said it was showing the same things and that it "shuddered".

The dealer is going to look at it this morning, so hopefully later today I'll find out what's wrong with it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(paprius4030 @ Apr 12 2006, 09:32 AM) [snapback]238498[/snapback]</div>

I thought about that too, but she said the tank was full. She says she filled it up Monday afternoon, a day before it broke down.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ScottY @ Apr 12 2006, 11:10 AM) [snapback]238541[/snapback]</div>

December '05

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Apr 12 2006, 11:05 AM) [snapback]238534[/snapback]</div>

You might be kind of right.

I just talked to my wife, and she says the Toyota mechanic is waiting for a call back from Toyota, but he believes that the car thinks it is out of gas. My wife says she put 9 gallons in it on Monday and that the fuel guage reads full. However, she also says that twice in the last couple of days the MFD gas milage numbers have reset on their own.

So the current unconfirmed hypothesis is that something in the fuel system has failed such as the fuel pump.

 

Well, so far they are stumped and don't know what's wrong with my wife's Prius. Whatever Toyota tech center the dealer is talking to diagnose the problem has asked the dealer to pull from more data from the computer and send it to them. The dealer will do that tomorrow, so I'm hoping that by this time tomorrow they'll at least know what's wrong.

It's a good thing my wife was already at her parent's house because I have a feeling this is going to take a while.

 

Well, I got an update from the service rep on my car...

They pulled some more diagnostic information from the car last night and this morning and sent it to Toyota. According to the service rep, neither the dealer, nor the Toyota tech center knows exactly what happened to the car, but the Toyota tech center has decided that they should replace the inverter.

Thank god for the warrenty. The service rep said that their cost for the inverter alone is over $4000. Additonally, the service rep said that they've never had to replace an inverter before and they have to go out and buy additional tools and safety equipment to do it.

The service rep said they will receive the inverter this afternoon and will install it tomorrow. Having never done it before, they're not sure how long it will take, but he thinks it should be done by Saturday morning.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(malorn @ Apr 13 2006, 11:02 AM) [snapback]239085[/snapback]</div>

That was my thought as well. It may very well be that the inverter is bad, but the question did it fail on its own, or did some other component cause the failure? Sounds like that's the thing they don't know.

If some other component caused the failure, then it might cause it again, and it might not do so immediately, so even a test drive might not prove anything. As soon as she gets it back, my wife and daughter will get in it and drive 750 miles back home. Hopefully, she will make it back without incident.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Apr 13 2006, 11:44 AM) [snapback]239119[/snapback]</div>

The fuel system thing has apparently been dismissed. The dealer had originally said that the car appeared to be acting like it thought it was out of gas, which it clearly was not. I imagine that was a wild guess before they started talking to the toyota tech center.

This dealer is out in the middle of rural South Carolina, so I doubt they've done very much serious work on many Priuses. But, seeing how it's the tech center that is really diagnosing the problem, I'm not too concerned. All the dealer has to be able to do is replace whatever they are told to replace and they have a Prius Master Tech on staff who will do it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(naterprius @ Apr 13 2006, 12:27 PM) [snapback]239149[/snapback]</div>

This Prius is was bought on December 3rd, 2005, so it was probably built in October. How old is that TSB?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Apr 13 2006, 12:42 PM) [snapback]239158[/snapback]</div>

No, they'd probably go up 77 to 81. However, taking the route through the North Carolina and Virginia mountains may not be the best choice this time. 85/95 is the alternate route, but it usually takes longer due to all the traffic on 95.