Battery over heating

As in at the end of the day or during the day? It lives under a carport at night.

 

The Prius is on the road most of the day covering 200+ miles. So a window cover would not be much help in this case. But will leave the rear cover extended from now on. It looks like the heat issue was mainly the fan being clogged. Wont let it go so long next time.

Just need to do the normal maint. things now to see if I can solve the surging issue @ coast. Like the MAF and TB. The PVC was checked not long ago. Plugs due in 30,000.

 

Cleaned the VVT valve out last night and on the first run today the car has stopped surging. Drove about 40 miles.

When I pulled it out the valve still seemed to move freely when moving the valve manually, but sprayed it with cleaner until the black goop (old oil) was all gone. The car has had 5k oil changes for most of it's life and only going to 3k changes when it started using oil at around 180,000 miles or so.

The normal MPG for city driving is around the 40-42mpg mark and on an open road trip 2 weeks ago hit 50mpg.

 

The oil was just on 3,000 miles old and yes the car has been serviced by Toyota all it's life until 192,000 miles. So when the VVT valve came out, the oil was ready for a change and there fore looked dark - but not black or burnt. The throttle body was cleaned by Toyota beginning of last year and still looks very clean when I open the butterfly. It's not sticky at all when I push the spring.

Spark plugs are due in 30,000 miles. The car seems to have plenty of power to get onto the motorways and up to speed and will cruise the interstate highways just fine. There is no miss under load at all.

So it's back to the throttle body to see if that has issues.

My OBII gadget is not reporting any codes as yet. I may need a better code reader!

Wife reported it was surging again today after about 100 miles. HV battery is working as it should all be it not as strong now with 210,000 miles on it. The 12v battery is just over 1 year old and reported 12v using the diag mode on the car and 14.2 under load.

 

That is next hey

It only started doing this last week when the HV battery overheated due to the fan being clogged. I was unaware that the fan ran all the time as I had never heard it running assumed it would be fine.

Wife also informs me today she hit a speed bump a little too fast just before it started to play up...

 

I guess doing 1,000 miles+ per week will show up as fault soon enough and this time when the red triangle comes on - wife has instructions to go get it read at a dealer.

Will post the outcome when it comes to hand!

 

Well tonight the alarm went off again and the HV fan went full on! And it looks like it was low on oil too. (due for a change tomorrow) Wife added a qtr right away and next stop the red triangle, USC and the circle ! went out.

So the car is using oil now as expected with high miles. But will just needing a qtr of oil trip an alarm?

 

Update here, Got a scan done at O'Rielys tonight with no codes showing up.

The car has ran smoothly all day with no surging at all. It seems much happier with a belly full of oil.

So the issue seems to be related to low oil, be it only 1 quart down. I will add oil every few days and see if it keeps the car happy and warning light free. It could be using 1 quart every 1,000 miles with no sign of leaks or smoke out the back - nor does it smell like it is burning oil. Very strange - but on par for 210,000 mile car.

Oh and the throttle body was still very clean.

 

Will check the oil now at 500-600 miles, so about every 2 or 3 days. Sort of negates the need for oil changes at 3,000 miles though as the car will have 3/4 fresh oil! LOL Just change the filter every 5,000.

Anyway will wait to see if keeping the oil up to full mark will stop the surging (may have to do with the VVT system not having enough oil)
and not set the HV battery fan off.

It may just be a coincidence that the low oil sets off the HV fan! Just not sure. If we get the alarm again it will be off to Toyota to get a full scan done.