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P3000 won’t go away…

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by UTadventures, Jul 16, 2024 at 3:32 PM.

  1. UTadventures

    UTadventures Junior Member

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    This is a TLDR post, sorry in advance, but I’m stuck.

    2008 184k. Bought cheap 2 years ago w/ failing a HV battery. About 18 months ago I rebuilt the battery with a few new modules. It lasted until a few weeks ago. I decided to try the reconditioning method, and replaced four of the weakest modules. After a month of cycling, all are now over 4.0Ah, most are over 5.0Ah capacity.

    Rebuilt and installed, but the 6 month old 12v was now dead so I jumped it and all warning lights were gone, even after driving a few miles. However the 12v was so dead that a 30 minute drive did nothing to charge it. A second jump and drive also did nothing, so I pulled it out to check and charge (5.72v, yikes). 2 days of trickle charging solved that issue, but when starting the Prius up, it immediately threw the p3000 code. Which makes me think it’s NOT a cooling issue (?). Only other “issue” is a blinking “empty” fuel gauge, even though it’s definitely topped off - and showed full on previous drives.

    Interestingly, with the Dr Prius app, when I change the cooling temp higher, the red triangle does NOT appear, but does as soon as the battery reaches that temperature.

    The blower works fine, when checked on the bench between 0.8A and 2.0A @12v.

    I do not have Tech Stream

    I’ve also done the following:

    Replaced all nuts and bus bars
    Checked all related fuses and connections (zero corrosion in the high desert)
    Balanced the battery modules for 5 days
    Max voltage module variability was 0.12v, usually 0.05v.


    Drives as normal if you ignore the red triangle, but I don’t want to.

    What am I missing?
     
    #1 UTadventures, Jul 16, 2024 at 3:32 PM
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Well you do need a capable scanner to read what's in the Prius that you have doesn't have to be tech It could be an AP200 that's only like $55 but at some point if you're willing to play whack them all and do all this other stuff I would think a 55 dollar scanner would certainly be in the mix. And so you have a red triangle and nothing else usually there's other lights on the triangles just letting you know that things are being seen by systems and you need to look over there at the orange lights the red BRAKE light or what have you I don't know I can't see from here.
     
    #2 Tombukt2, Jul 17, 2024 at 9:06 AM
  3. UTadventures

    UTadventures Junior Member

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    When the red triangle goes on, the (!) and (VSC) light also comes on. I can show a pic, but my free app only shows HV high voltage battery fault. I can repeat it when activating the cooling fan from the Dr Prius app, and can make it NOT go on by raising the “thermostat” temp, but when it does activate, and the motor doesn’t start, it throws the same code every time.
    In that sense, I feel confident the issue is here, but not sure if it’s a ground fault, short, or something that when the motor would try to pull a load there is only voltage and no amps to turn it.
    I am also not against buying nice/ good tools, but if I can do the job with less I will. In 30 years of driving and fixing my own stuff, this is probably the first time I’ve needed to dive this deep into diagnostics
    Images attached with and without the red triangle. IMG_1013.jpeg IMG_1012.jpeg
     
    #3 UTadventures, Jul 17, 2024 at 9:50 AM
  4. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    You could have the battery isolation fault in the battery area that can set similar business but we're all just guessing doing that the down and dirty test for the HV battery leak is to take the cover off the back of the service plug leave the hoop up but inserted and measure from one of those silver bolts DC volts to one of the ground or mounting bolts of the battery chassis to the frame of the car it should count down to zero DC volts whatever your left with looking at that's what's running to the car chassis that's your negative 12 volt ground for your other electrical system so it kind of wreaks havoc . On computers and electronics but usually when this is going on you have to reset that code to get the car to start for your next drive. The AP200 is the capable scan tool that's a great bi-directional scanner for anything that has an OBD2 port and if you take the Toyota software free for the one car model you get you can still read codes on everything on the planet you just can't do any service work with this particular scanner until you have the given software for the given make and/or model.
     
    #4 Tombukt2, Jul 17, 2024 at 11:32 AM
  5. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    That's to be expected. When there's a hybrid system fault, the HV control ECU tells the skid control ECU about it, and in response the skid control ECU will set the codes C1259 (an ECB code) and/or C1310 (a VSC code), making those lights come on.

    But of course those codes don't tell you much about what actual hybrid-system code is at the bottom of it all. We do have a thread comparing scan tools and apps and identifying which ones can get all the codes:

    Gen2 OBD2 app review | PriusChat
     
    #5 ChapmanF, Jul 17, 2024 at 12:09 PM
    UTadventures likes this.
  6. UTadventures

    UTadventures Junior Member

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    OK. I have the VeePeak BT OBDII reader. I did have a weird negative bank voltage reading at one point using DrPrius, but realized afterward (and panicking a bit) that it was because I still had the service plug out. I was getting normal readings for all but bank 10, which kept flipping from positive 15-16V to Negative 15-16V, about every three seconds. I thought I put a module in backwards (but didn’t), and re-torqued all module nuts (thinking loose connection), until I realized the orange plug was off still.
    I did also check voltage from the first module negative post facing front, and it jumped ~16V each additional + module. But did not check with the chassis ground.
     
    #6 UTadventures, Jul 17, 2024 at 12:52 PM
  7. UTadventures

    UTadventures Junior Member

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    Well, we currently own four Toyota/ Lexus: Two Siennas, the Prius and an LX470, so I’ll look into the AP200. How do you get the free Toyota software?
     
    #7 UTadventures, Jul 17, 2024 at 12:58 PM
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