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Causes for P0A93 other than the coolant pump?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Main Forum' started by Richard Finley, May 26, 2022.

  1. Richard Finley

    Richard Finley New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 13, 2021
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    Location:
    Waco, Tx
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    II
    Last year my 2009 Prius with 131,000 on it gave the P0A93 code. The coolant was not flowing so the pump was changed, code reset and all was good -- coolant topped off and was flowing. Now the code has popped up again, 10 months later. The coolant is flowing but was at the low mark. so the pump is working. The radiator coolant was also 1 quart low. There are no signs of leaks on the garage floor. The code was reset and the car has been driven about 15 miles so far. The red triangle nor any of the warning lights have popped up again. What else could I check and what else could cause the code? I'll give it a longer drive today to see if it reappears. If it comes back on while I'm driving around, how far can I drive before major damage is done?
     
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Location:
    Durham NC
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    Base
    My 2009 has had this problem several times with a myriad of inverter coolant pumps from cheap to relatively expensive like near $70 I'm seeing three or four months and the pump stops pumping it's not the fuse it's not the wiring or the plug on the pump it's just these cheap pumps fail and they don't pump but it takes a while for your inverter coolant temperature to rise far enough to put the little green car in the MFD to Red with an exclamation point that will happen to me on a long trip and then I'll stop let it cool down reset it in the green car will be on a long time around town I have not been able to get the red car and! To show up it's only on the highway this happened to me coming back on a 3-hour trip from Charlotte North Carolina to the Durham area I went all the way down got 530 miles to the tank of gas and then on the way back the red car and! Popped up I immediately pulled over whipped up the hood neither of the two hoses going from the coolant pump in the loop were warm so I know no water is flowing through there or not being pumped and the bottom of the inverter was about $138°. I let it cool down a little bit and then I drove the 2 hours home that I had left to drive the red! And car on all the way when I got home I whipped over on the highway to see how bad my inverter bottom was for heat and it was about 135 I went to 5 minutes to the house from there parked the car got tech stream out it showed the code for performance of the inverter pump so like it may be coming on and going off intermittently that's probably the pump going south again
     
  3. ColoradoCrow

    ColoradoCrow Active Member

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    Sep 2, 2019
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    Location:
    Leawood, KS
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    I
    Did you replace the pump with an OEM toyota one?
     
  4. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    2009 Prius
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    Base
    I have the Toyota unit I don't know about 80 bucks or something and I've got a couple of non Toyota units that range from $14 to $45 and every stinking one of them looks exactly the same this is the same pump design that's used on a lot of my gas two wheel scooters like motorcycle but not almost exactly it's really strange the ones on my bike will last a long time even the cheap ones from China I have one running out now my bike's warming up and getting ready to go for a ride pumps working great same connector and everything I can plug the Toyota pump to the bike and it'll come on but in the Toyota it doesn't work in codes go figure it's just a washing machine pump out pump it's all magnetic the impeller goes around by not being connected through the plastic of the part so it can't leak at least not from a seal involving the motor so I don't know what's going on this happens every three or four months I get the code this red! The red car I let it cool and it goes away and it sounds like the pump is running all day really terribly or slowly.
     
  5. Richard Finley

    Richard Finley New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 13, 2021
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    Location:
    Waco, Tx
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    II
    After talking to a place that rebuilds and installs the traction batteries, I was told that they have a lot of problems with the aftermarket pumps. This one was from RockA. So strike 1. The 12V battery was a 5 year old Optima yellow top and it read 11 v. So it was also suspect. Strike 2. They recommended an OEM pump and a new 12V battery. So I bit the bullet and got one of the overpriced OEM pumps and a new Toyota battery while I was there. Surprisingly, the battery was about the same price as all the others. So, this weekend, I'll put it all back together and see what happens.Hopefully, no strike 3.
     
    ColoradoCrow likes this.
  6. pasadena_commut

    pasadena_commut Senior Member

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    May 2, 2019
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    Location:
    Southern California
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
    Model:
    N/A
    If my car was blowing trough OEM pumps I would first drain the coolant, flush it, and refill. If it ate another one then I would suspect an electrical problem in the car which was somehow burning up the motors. (At least check that the pins on the wiring harness are clean and show no signs of having burnt.)

    However, going through non-OEM pumps wouldn't surprise me at all. There are a lot of really crappy components coming out of China. These look OK on the outside but they are very low quality on the inside and are unreliable.