1. Attachments are working again! Check out this thread for more details and to report any other bugs.

Burning smell on high current regen braking

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by roflwaffle, Dec 13, 2012.

  1. roflwaffle

    roflwaffle Member

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2012
    381
    77
    0
    Location:
    Orange County
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Model:
    Five
    Hi everyone. This morning I noticed a strong burning odor, like burning wax. It only seems to occur on high current regen events (eg coming off the freeway). It also happens to be raining, although I'm not sure if that's part of the issue or just a coincidence. Any ideas?
     
  2. Britprius

    Britprius Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2010
    5,194
    1,914
    0
    Location:
    Herefordshire England
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Sounds like a problem with either HV battery connections or bus bar connections in the battery. This needs to be checked out sooner rather than later as possible potential of fire risk.
     
  3. roflwaffle

    roflwaffle Member

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2012
    381
    77
    0
    Location:
    Orange County
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Model:
    Five
    I'll definitely take a look if I can't rule out the problem in some other way. Someone in another thread mentioned another interesting idea, a plastic bag stuck to the exhaust pipe, which seems a lot more likely in the rain. In retrospect, that would explain why it only smelled on the freeway and didn't smell when I braked to a stop going downhill at 50mph. The peak current might be higher, but if there were connectin issues it should still show up if the current were say, 50% of that. I also think that the display would do all sorts of odd things/throw codes if there was that much arcing (to the point where we could smell it) going on with the pack connectors.
     
  4. Britprius

    Britprius Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2010
    5,194
    1,914
    0
    Location:
    Herefordshire England
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    I hope it is something simple such as a plastic bag but from your initial description only doing it in high regen it does sound like a high resistance electrical connection.
     
  5. nh7o

    nh7o Off grid since 1980

    Joined:
    Dec 10, 2011
    1,686
    338
    0
    Location:
    Hawaii
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    II
    What was the battery state of charge showing when this happened? All green bars?
     
  6. roflwaffle

    roflwaffle Member

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2012
    381
    77
    0
    Location:
    Orange County
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Model:
    Five
    The battery SOC varied. After my girlfriend drove the car home I looked underneath and sure enough there was a big clump of shrink wrap.

    Edit- The fun part is going to be trying to get the melted chunk of crap off of the cat/exhaust. Hopefully , brake/carb cleaner, acetone, and/or ammonia will work as per random google results.