Hello PC!

-H.i, I just wanted to introduce myself, I have read PC since last year when I bought my used 2007 G2 with 159k mi on it, just wanted to say hello and thank all the people here that shares their knowledge, it's very useful and encourages to be a DIY'er

Unfortunately my car's HV battery died yesterday gave me some nice 8k mi and a year+ of satisffying driving, but that's another story, I'm considering if it's worth buying a new battery since I'm outside the US and the cost of shipping + taxes and fares might be too high .

Anyways, HELLO!

 

Thanks! I live in Guatemala, Central America, costs to import things like this are very high, I found a couple of specialist online that would service the HV battery locally but in here, mechanics are usually not honest so I'm a little skeptical, actually I was considering this as well, I will contact them to find out, maybe they can replace a couple modules for a reasonable price and I will try, although I would rather spend the bucks to buy 2k1Toaster kit and get 10+ years service out of the Prius or maybe use it 5 years and sell it so the other person can get 5+ years it all depends on the price for the module repair.

Bought the car last year with 159k miles on it, it was already 10 years old so deep inside I knew the traction battery might fail soon, but I always wanted to have a prius since I watched Curb Your Enthusiasm more than a decade ago hahah. On 2017 I was getting almost 54MPG on the MFD consistently, 51 doing the manual calculation when refilling the tank, but this year it started dropping to 48MPG on the MFD, that's a huge difference, but also due to work, my driving conditions changed, so thought it might be due to that in part.

When I had the red triangle of death come on, VSC, CEL and exclamation mark on as well, I connected the Mini-VCI and got the dreaded P0A80, I read the voltages for the modules and module 10 seems to be the issue with low voltage, the thing is I tried to drive the car after that and it got onto limp mode, HV battery fan fully blasting, so I might have done additional damage to the pack just drove it like that for like 1 mile though, I'm still feeling a little down about the whole thing so haven't bothered with reading the codes again and checking the voltages for the modules, but I will soon.

The issues started some weeks ago when the car started making a weird noise and the CEL light came on, read the codes, the HVAC Coolant Control Valve seems to be damaged, thought it might be the 12V aux battery, and actually it seems to be weak, I drive mostly at dark so always use all the lights, short trips usually (10 miles one way) so that might have helped to weaken it and keep it at a low SOC, so in an attempt to save it I went and connected a new battery fully charged in parallel to balance the weak battery, it worked fine, now the aux battery is almost within normal V range, still a little weak but will keep the other battery connected while the car is stopped so it's well maintained and maybe reconditioned , if you wonder where I took the idea, it was from this video Prius 12V AGM Battery Reconditioning on youtube, forum will not allow me to enter the link here. During that week I started to feel a smell like something was heating, most likely was the HV Batt starting to fail, I noticed the MFD battery SOC meter was charging and discharging faster than usual and started hearing the HV battery fan, never heard it before, I knew there was something wrong...

Then the combo meter started to fail, here's where I think I killed the HV battery, since I stopped using the car like for a week while I got the time to repair the meter, of course I started the car daily but seems it wasn't enough. At least this repair is already done hehe.

Sorry for the long text, just wanted to share my experience, and thanks for the idea about swapping the modules and balance the pack, definitely I will try to do that.

Thanks for the welcome bisco

 

I had exactly that question, so at this moment you recommend me not even starting the car? lol if only I read this half an hour ago that I started it haha...

I have one question though, if I don't have the hybrid battery connected, at least it will let me "engage" Neutral so I can move it a little bit? Do you recommend me to remove the service plug right away? I have reduced space in my garage, and I need to move it a couple of times a week so I can keep the 12V battery charged.

Definitely I would like to be able to help more people locally if I can by learning how to re-balance and repair the pack, if it won't make more damage to not start the car by now, I might do this, since it would take me a long time to do it by the lack of spare time I have at the moment. I have some knowledge in electronics and general DIY repairs, it helps to be an auto-didactic handyman in general haha.

Looking for corrosion is a great idea, I will definitely inform me more about how to handle the HV pack well and in a safely manner, and will disassemble it and look/clean for any corrosion. I cleaned the fan 6k miles ago (didn't have too much dirt build up), but will check for dirt anyways

I'm looking around with my contacts on how could I get the kit imported without issues, hopefully I can find a good viable and reliable option.

Thank you for all the ideas and for offering help, that's why I like this community, probably I will open another thread asking for help when I do the repair

Greetings!

 

Hello, I have a little update, I started to cycle the batteries fortunately, there seems to be only one module of block #10, module #19 that is bad. There was a bad case of corrosion on the bus bars, I cleaned them and the nuts with vinegar, excellent solution. Now I have to clean the voltage sensors with sodium bicarbonate to neutralize the acid residues, I'll do it after the cycles

I would like to clean all the modules because the pack has a weird smell, most likely electrolytic acid, is it safe to spray the modules with a solution of water and sodium bicarbonate and/or vinegar and let dry or force dry with a heat gun, or will spraying them cause any damage? what would you guys recommend to clean them safely? of course I would make sure to not do a short circuit haha.

Did the load test to each of them, with a halogen H4 bulb connected to both the high/low beam for 1 minute and these are the results.

OCV #1 value on the left is the resting voltage after being out of the car for 5 or so days, OCV #1 value on the right after the slash (/) is the resting voltage 12-15 hours after the load test.

CCV #1 shows the end voltage during the load test after 60 seconds and the Amps being drawn by the bulb after 60 seconds. e.g. MOD #1 [email protected]



I was positive I might be able to recover module #19 since during the load test it went down by 0.36V compared to resting voltage and the other modules where low by around 0.23V during the load test, but it seems it is dead, something weird happened. I started the cycle discharging to 6.1V, the charger showed 1.3A discharge rate (I set it up to 3.0A but seems it's limited), didn't take too long since voltage was already low.

MODULE #19 results:
DSC #1 was [email protected] according to the charger.
CHG #1 began, module took 2519mAH set @ 2.0A according to the charger.
Everything seemed good since it was the first charge from the cycle.

DSC #2 began, discharged 1099mAH, then something weird happened, CHG #2 started, only took 35mAH, DSC #3 was 66mAH, and CHG #3 took only 35mAH, then the cycle ended, no errors on the charger.

Any recommendations to recondition module #19 with the charger? maybe messing up with the Delta Peak? it is set to default, maybe due to the condition of the module it set off the D.peak and stopped the cycle too soon. Or do you think it would be safer to just swap it with another good module? the other modules seem to be doing fine with the settings I used with module #19.

Any input will be greatly appreciated, thanks

 

Little update, Channel #1 on my quad charger seems to be faulty, feeeewwww, I might have a chance with module #19 after all, same thing happened with another module I connected to CH1, I will try to do a manual CHG and DSC cycle to see if there's something wrong with the D>C cycling program only, or if CH1 is completely faulty, hope not, that would increase my repair time by 25%. The other 3 Channels seem to be doing their job just fine, wish me luck!

 

I successfully reconditioned my pack my settings are in this thread, page 114, now I will replace the faulty HVAC coolant control valve and clean the the MAF sensor and throttle body to see if that helps with fuel economy

Gen II Prius Individual Battery Module Replacement | Page 114 | PriusChat

Cheers.