Dreaded P0A80 Code - Car Running / Charging Good.

That's a good price for charging....
I'm not sure about the small box. I don't remember it. Maybe it's an older version???
You'll have to check Prolongs page, perhaps ask them.
Does it come with the wiring harness?? You certainly need that.

You could leave the charger on for 4 or five hours after the charging has leveled off and is stable.
That balances the pack. And let it sit for at least an hours after removing it.
So it can cool off and all the blocks can settle/level off.

 

Yes, that's a good price.
You'd have to check the Prolong page for the procedure of the bulb one.

You charge first, it will cut off.
Then discharge to the the higher voltage.
They charge.
They discharge to the middle voltage.
Then charge
Then discharge to the lowest voltage.
Then the final charge.

You should read their information.
Prolong Value Reconditioning Package - Hybrid Automotive

And here are the "guides". Product Guides - Hybrid Automotive

 

Be very careful with those tiny wires.. Won't take much for them them to get damaged.
Do no over torque the nuts. Only use a 1/4 drive.

The charger and discharger are to separate items. You can always keep looking for the
discharger and purchase later.

 

Did you clear that code? Or at least try to clear the code?

 

Right. A 'permanent' code that went away with a code clear would kind of be missing the point ....

 

I remember doing it with techstream several years back.
I also did it with my D8 tool. When I put in my new battery.

Reading something from Toyota, they say to clear it, even though they say it won't clear.
But, when you've driven it a few times, it should go away. Hope it does for you.

 

To make it a little less mysterious:

There are different columns or states for displaying a trouble code, and they mean different things. When it is shown as 'current', it's reporting a problem known to exist right now. And will generally light a warning light. And you can clear it, say if you think you have fixed the problem, and the light will go out.

But in some ECUs, when you clear a code shown as 'current', it will leave behind the same code, shown as 'permanent' (or 'history'). That won't light a warning light, and it doesn't necessarily mean the problem is known to exist right now. It means the ECU remembers a problem did exist.

So, you can perfectly well clear a P0A80—a 'current' P0A80. The code will go away from the 'current' column, the warning light will go off, and the car works as before. It's just that a record in the 'permanent' column will be left behind for the same code.

Codes in the 'permanent' column are not for you to wave away with a code clear. That would defeat the purpose. The code in the 'permanent' column will stay there until the ECU is good and sure the remembered problem has truly been fixed.

That means the ECU's monitor test that's responsible for setting that code has to run, and pass, a sufficient number of times, on separate drives. As soon as that has happened, the 'permanent' code goes away.

You often see people saying there's some magic number of miles to drive or the like. It's not quite that simple. For every trouble code, there's a monitor test the ECU runs now and then to see if the code should be set. The way each test works, of course, is very specific to the trouble code it tests for. Some are easy, like trouble codes about an open or shorted sensor circuit. The test for that can complete with a pass/fail result within seconds every time you turn the car on. The tests for other codes may only be able to run in very specific sets of circumstances, like engine warmed up, driving a certain speed, certain throttle opening, and so on. You could make a few short drives and have the permanent code go away, if every drive hit the right conditions for the test to run. Or, you could still have the permanent code hundreds of miles later, if your hundreds of miles of driving didn't happen to hit the conditions needed for that test to run enough times.

So if you get impatient, you can look up that specific code's "confirmation driving pattern". There's really not much magic to it, the manual just tells you how to drive in a way that's sure to create the conditions for the monitor test to be able to run. And that's where you see the instruction to "clear codes even if there are no codes to clear".

What's that about? Well, the whole reason you're doing this is because you have a permanent code, but we already know a code clear doesn't make permanent codes go away. If the only codes you have showing are permanent ones, the code clear won't make any codes go away. So why is that a step in this pattern?

The other thing a code clear always does is it resets all the monitor self-tests to 'incomplete'. (That's why you have to think twice about doing a code clear if you have a mandatory inspection due soon.)

Resetting all the monitors to 'incomplete' means they are all going to run again as soon as they can—each one will run the first time your driving happens to meet all the conditions needed for it to run. That's what you want, so when you deliberately drive the confirmation driving pattern for the code you want to get rid of, you'll be creating the conditions needed for the test to run, and because your code clear set the test back to 'incomplete', you know it will run at the first opportunity when your driving meets those conditions.

The only more-magic parts of the procedure are that maintenance mode and a "universal trip" are usually part of the confirmation pattern, and that's what tells the ECU you're doing this on purpose, so it will drop the permanent code the first time the monitor passes.

If you don't do those on-purpose things, and instead just drive the car, well, the monitor test will run whenever it happens to run when the right conditions are met in your driving, and that will have to happen, and pass, a few times on separate drives before the permanent code goes away.

 

The computers are looking for a certain pattern that says everything is working correctly.
Whatever it is doing, when it sees the things it wants to see that are the correct way, it will
say okay, then remove the permanent code.

Reading what I typed, I realize what was in my mind and what went to the fingers was not the same. Sorry.
Just drive the car. As long as you aren't seeing any warning lights, eventually, the code will clear.

The D8 scan tool I have, there is a section that will put the car in maintenance mode, you don't have to do
all those things to get there. I think they do that so an individual gets tired of doing that stuff and takes it
to the dealer to do that work.
Having the correct tools makes things easier.
Just be cautious driving in maintenance mode, Toyota says you can damage the car while driving in it and
not to exceed a certain speed or distance.

 

Notice that the way of posing the question you've chosen here would rule out the answer I gave back in #109, which was that I wouldn't be doing anything "between step 5 and 6", I would just be skipping step 5 and doing step 6 as written.

I can't tell whether you meant to rule out the answer I gave then, or your question just happened to come out that way.

My best guess as to what went wrong in the editorial process for the repair manual would be that somebody didn't notice step 5 duplicates the first thing step 6 tells you to do, but is missing the inspection-mode detail.

Have you by chance signed in to TIS to see if the current repair-manual text has clarified that procedure?

Ah, there's the rub. It's not that procedures deviate for specific problems, it's that all the skill and challenge of diagnostic work goes into being sure what the specific problem is. Before which, others don't know if they "are going through the same" yet.

Also, in an imperfect world where things like editorial goofs in repair manuals sometimes happen, there can be times when a person has to reason something out, which can be hard without understanding a little more about what the car is doing, beyond just a rote sequence of steps. Yeah, that can make answers a bit longer, but also sometimes helps readers get to the bottom of something.