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Several replacements, still probs! Help! ‘06 prius

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Mkferrie, Jul 24, 2021.

  1. Mkferrie

    Mkferrie Junior Member

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    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
    Model:
    Base
    Hey everyone! I have an ‘06 prius with 164000 miles and I have a bunch of things no one seems to be able to figure out.

    1. About a three months ago, my combo meter started flaking. Could reset it until I could fix with unplugging 12v.
    2. one month ago: red triangle, ABS (!) light and check engine came on.
    3. Car went into limp home mode. Battery on display wouldn’t go up past one or two bars.Codes: P3000 and P0A80. 12v great.
    4. Had hybrid battery tested, all good. Was told codes may be triggering due to combo meter.
    5. Sent combo meter in for replacement.
    6. Car sat for two weeks waiting. Got it back in, drove and and within a couple drives prior lights back on. Codes ran again: P0A80 and P3012 again. ABS (!) came on, but would turn off once the car was turned off and restarted. The red triangle and check engine remained.
    6. Had hybrid battery tested again. Two cells went bad in those two weeks... 12v still good
    7. Had refurbished battery put in.
    8. Everything seemed good. Drove a few times. Force charged great. Everything seemed good.
    9. A couple days with small drives in, red triangle, abs and check engine on again. The battery on display I would decrease overnight from being completely charged all the way down to one bar. It seemed to recharge quickly when driving. But then a few more drives in, it seems like every other drive it would seem like it had a hard time accelerating and the engine would continue revving when we weren’t pressing on the gas and almost felt like it was almost in limp home mode but wasn’t quite. The Bars on the display would also stay low or would start out high and go low almost right away.
    10. Had The refurbished battery tested and it was running perfectly. There was a difference in voltages between them The highest and lowest at a quarter of a volt.
    11. The times that the display was super up and down, we couldn’t force charge it. Then we would turn the car off and restart it and it would force charge into the green.
    12. Had codes tested again and they came up with nothing at AutoZone and actually came up with nothing at our Toyota mechanic until he did an entire scan option and it came up with these codes P0a80 and p3000 again. He cleared the codes and we drove it home.
    13. Today when I turned it on and got ready to back out of my driveway everything came up again, red triangle, ABS and check engine. It seemed like it was having a hard time accelerating again.
    14. Got to my short destination and when I came back out the ABS light was off again. Hybrid battery fan blowing hard.
    15. It felt like it had a very hard time chugging home. When I would come to a stop I would press on the acceleration and it would almost not move for the first couple seconds and then it would kind of go forward. I was nervous we wouldn’t make it home.
    16. We are having the refurbished battery replaced with another one just to see if that’s the issue within the next couple of weeks.

    anyone have something similar happen and it was something else? It seems like he can be driven a couple times after clearing the codes before the codes come back on also. And sometimes it will drive perfect without anything and then the next time all the lights come back on and it limps along.

    things we’ve trouble shooted:
    1. Buss bars are clean
    2. 12v is good
    3. No water near 12 v
    4. Hybrid fan is clear
    5. Oil level good
    6. Coolant level good and moving.
    Can’t think of anything else.

    HELP!
     
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  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    That 1/4 of a volt difference is usually that upper limit of voltage difference in a healthy battery pack that it will visit only very briefly. So if you're finding a 1/4 of a volt difference that high as a baseline periodically you're going to be seeing a 1/2 volt difference and that's going to throw your P3000 code right away. In general you need voltage difference to stay close to a 1/10th of a volt.

    If you've not been driving the car every day then you could put in on trickle charger and get all the modules back to same voltage...

    In the meantime while you plan for another pack get yourself an inexpensive OBD2 reader and use Dr. Prius to monitor voltage difference, as well as clear error codes while driving so you can get out of limp mode as soon as it hits. And main thing to keep an eye on is the three battery temp readings. Once those get too high, you will cause damage by clearing the codes and continuing to drive.

    Here's buyer's guide for OBD2 plug: Hybrid battery diagnostic and repair tool for Toyota and Lexus
     
    Mkferrie likes this.
  3. Mkferrie

    Mkferrie Junior Member

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    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
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    Base
     
  4. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Your reply didn't show up... Please re-send...
     
  5. Mkferrie

    Mkferrie Junior Member

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    Sorry!!!! “Super super helpful! Thank you! So are you thinking it’s likely the new pack? Or is that what it is sounding like? Thanks so much for your help”
     
  6. mr_guy_mann

    mr_guy_mann Senior Member

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    Yes, there is something going on with your replacement pack. Whether the problem is one of the battery modules or has to do with something that connects to them will have to be determined. The P3000 code is the hybrid control ecu saying"hey, there's a problem over in the battery ecu, go check there for codes". P0A80 "means" that the battery ecu saw (too much of) a difference between the highest and lowest voltages of the battery blocks.

    The high voltage battery is made up of 14 "blocks" and the ecu can monitor the voltage of each one. Each block is made up of two modules. Each sealed 7.2V module is 6 x 1.2V nickel metal hydride cells in series. All the modules (and blocks) are connected in series. So 7.2V per module x 28 modules = 201.6V (nominal) for the pack. The actual voltage can be a fair bit higher as the battery's State Of Charge (SOC) increases.

    Now on a healthy battery, all of the block voltages stay close to the same under most all conditions- typically under 0.3V difference. When you accelerate hard (esp with the A/C on), the battery discharges and the voltages go down. When you brake (regenerate), the battery charges and the voltages increase. As the battery modules age and deteriorate, they no longer stay at the same "level" as each other any more. Weaker modules drop lower when discharged and go higher when charged. Once the voltage difference stays great enough for a certain period of time, it will set the P0A80. AFAIK as the voltage difference increases, the less time needed to set a code. Eventually the ecu will also set a code indicating which block had the lowest voltage. (Block number xx is "weak")

    Now if someone wants to figure out what is causing a code, then you need some type of scan tool to see the codes and data that the battery ecu has. You can view/log the block voltages AS YOU DRIVE THE CAR to see what the ecu doesn't like. As stated, Dr Prius app(with a compatible OBD2 bluetooth adapter) is a good option. As is the Hybrid Assistant app (for android).

    The most common problem IS one or more "bad" battery modules, but sometimes it can be improperly tightened busbar connections, bad voltage sense wiring or connections to the battery ecu, or the ecu itself.

    I don't know what the warranty is on your replacement battery pack, but this is something that the installer SHOULD be able to figure (if they know what they are doing).

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
    #6 mr_guy_mann, Jul 25, 2021
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2021
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  7. Mkferrie

    Mkferrie Junior Member

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    sooooo- this doesn’t look good! Input??? Seems that every time I did it, we for sure got an error code on one, three. But then other times I got error codes on the other. By the end of it I got a warning for warm battery.
     

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  8. Mkferrie

    Mkferrie Junior Member

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    Base
    Hey there- posted dr prius stuff below if you’re willing to check out my screen shots
     
  9. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    See where it says "voltage diff" 0.24v is a little high but manageable... but then it goes up to .64v and that's enough to throw warning code P3000 and the subsequent subcode. Keep studying it... Looks like one of the two modules in block #1 needs to be replaced.
     
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