Need help with a diagnosis! 2008 Prius. Transmission issues?

Not much to add here but some sympathy for your situation. Replacing the inverter pump and cleaning the HV battery fan are probably due and may be the cause. Regardless they fall in the category of preventive maintenance so it is money well spent. Your biggest issue is finding a shop that knows what they are doing and is reasonable. Second biggest is spending some time and a little money to learn how to diagnose stuff yourself. There are several phone apps and some cheap hardware that will allow you to see what the car computer can tell you. Also the battery power indicator, what type of driving charges the battery, what discharges it and how quickly does it go. Good luck, hope we all are helping not frustrating you.

 

A definite step in the right direction.

 

if your mom took it in for a new hybrid OEM battery, there should be paperwork and a bill of like at least $2,000.00 USD equivalent.

 

If that's from a Toyota dealership, it is an OEM hybrid battery because that's all they sell. (That's a great price if it was at the NZ-US dollar conversion I just looked up.)

 

I strongly recommend the cell phone apps, they are way cool. I setup the torque app to monitor battery parameters first. It was helpful on a basic level and fun to see. A little tricky to get all the prius specific stuff but utube videos abound on this. The Dr Prius has the best battery test and other stuff in the cheap software category. There are way more advanced tools out there, fortunately never needed them.
BTW, the torque app works on many cars, setup a screen for my turbo baja to monitor boost, AFR and RPM.

 

well thats a nice new OEM battery should last another ten years/100k miles!

agree on the cellphone apps, they can tell you all kinds of stuff. temperatures, voltages, current, resistance, torque, rpm, acceleration, mpg, air-fuel mix, etc etc. A lot of them let you log data so you can make your own graphs, thats what i did here on my 2007, i save a few dozen data dumps to my web site: https:// treecricket dot com / vehiviz

since the security bot wont let me post the link here is a graph i did

 

You need to take it back and get them to fix it. You already spent thousands. I would point blank ask if they put a new hv battery or set of cells in or were they "reconditioned" (used)? The price you paid is about $1800 US which is way too cheap for new at a dealer.

 

They SHOULD have cleaned the fan when they replaced the battery.

 

The Dr Prius app is a little picky about bluetooth interfaces, torque not as much. I last bought one on amazon, that way if it didn't work returning was easy. Next time I may try one that is hard wired to the phone as I keep losing them!

 

Do some research on what you want (need) your scantool to be able to do. I have several different ones as each has it's strengths and weaknesses.

A place to start is this thread.
https://priuschat.com/index.php?posts/3290690

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Concerning scanners, some of the choices have higher end models. Why? Because they do more. For example, one of the more challenging jobs is properly bleeding the brake booster system without Techstream. I have only seen one scanner under $1000 that could do it. Many say they can but they are general purpose, multi-brand tools that may do a conventional Ford ABS but not a Prius equivalent.

 

i had good luck with BAFX OBDII reader on Android using the Torque App, theres a lot of options out there for simple data gathering.

 

Typically the power connector to the hybrid battery fan rots out because just about All Gen2 prius leak water in the hatch area from cracks in the hatch valley. The water trickles down the rear passenger side of the car internally behind the interior panels and tends to drip right on top of the hybrid fan connector and corrodes it.
Very easy to check if you are leaking water open up the rear hatch take the spare tire out and look around for corrosion. You will see water in the 12 volt battery well. Get a flashlight and look in that battery hole and see how corroded the well is. If its rusted badly that 12 volt battery can fall out.

Its easy to check that corroded fan connector just take off the back interior carpeted panel. Its the white connector.

Here's a disassembly guide for a hybrid battery charger install. Good easy instructions how to take the side carpeted interior panel off its easy 2 screws, Its Step 7 & 8 to remove rear passenger side panel.
Step 22 shows the fan and its white connector. Open the connector up look at the pins and socket for green corrosion. Step 24 address cleaning that battery fan:

2004 – 2009 Toyota Prius Plug-and-Play Car Harness Installation Instructions - Hybrid Automotive