Prius won't start

Hello,

My 2004 prius died on me yesterday while driving home. I posted in another thread, but I think its getting offtopic on that thread.

I was stopped in traffic and all of a sudden the Red triangle comes on and I see problem on the MFD. It went into neutral at that point. I then tried to turn it off and back on. From that point on it would just blink all the gear indicators with square boxes around them and blink the gas gauge. From reading it appeared to be a dead 12v battery. I have charged up the 12 volt battery and attempted to start it. All I seem to get at this point is the start button blinks amber and the dash lights radio lights come on for a second and turn off. There is also a loud buzzing noise. The car will go into accessory mode just fine.

Just tried again. When trying to start/ready mode the car, all the dash lights spedometer /gear lights etc will light and then everything turns off about a 1/2 second later and just the square boxes around the gear indictors flash for a second and then they disappear. It is just the outline of the boxes around the gear indicator flashing. You cannot see the actual gears.

 

I have had the car for about 2 years. How would the inverter have any movement if hte car won't turn on? Car will go to accessory, it will not turn on, whether I put my foot on brake or take my foot off brake and hit the start button again, the lights turn on quickly, then turn off and the flashing boxes will be there for a second where the gears would be.

Everything I have read has said battery, but honestly the battery is at least 12.4 volts at this point and probably higher. It was hooked up to a 9 amp charger and yet nothing is different from last night before I charged it to now. I certainly can charge the battery fully tonight although I'm debating if that will help at this point as the tow truck driver said who is familiar with these cars, the battery seems plenty strong as none of the lights are dimming.

When doing the battery test in acc mode, the battery I believe was reading like 12.4 or 12.6 dipping to 11.9 with the lights on. Surely that should be enough to start the vehicle?

It concerns me that I was actively driving the car when it all of a sudden said problem. Granted I was stopped, but in most of these cases it seems to be that the person turned off the car and had a problem getting it started again.

 

Called two places that get good reviews as mechanics, neither place will touch it, said it could be the hybrid system and they can't do anything with that. I might as well call a donation center if I"m going to take it to the dealer as that's pretty much a minimum 1000 dollars and the car is worth maybe 2000.

 

No, does same thing as foot on brake. lights all light up, then shut off after maybe 1/2 second. Then the squares around the gear letters blink for a second. and start button blinks amber.

I'm gonna try to get my friends jumper cables later and see if that works, I'm 99% positive though that the battery has enough juice to start it. I'm not sure if maybe there is a fuse blown? What would cause it not to even leave the dash lights on?

 

no idea, but it probably charged on that for 20 minutes or less before dropping down. And a car battery can do way more than that. At any rate, from looking and looking it appears that I probably blew AM2 fuse and likely the inverter pump is gone. The good thing is it doesn't look like a ridiculous job to change.

 

So got home, checked AM2 fuse and its blown. Took off the connector from the inverter coolant pump and put in spare fuse and car fired right up. Does that guarantee the pump is dead? Are there any other spare fuses in the car to test with besides the one spare I just used from the front fusebox? Drove it around block a couple of times and started and stopped it a few times and all the warnings went away.

 

I don't know, I can't plug it in as I don't have a spare 15amp fuse. I mean I guess I could, I'll just have to get a new fuse.

 

I just tried, fuse blew as soon as I started the car with the inverter plugged in. Didn't even get to ready

 

Ordered new pump. I'm cheap, but since the difference between Genuine and fake was like 15 bucks I got the genuine one. Now I just need a fuse, some coolant and hopefully I can borrow and extension.

 

Got someone to loan me one. I've needed one this size probably 3 times in over 20 years so not worth the investment