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

Chasing HV Battery Concern

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by philipkolterman, Jan 7, 2017.

  1. philipkolterman

    philipkolterman Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2016
    3
    0
    0
    Location:
    US
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    III
    Last Sunday night my daughter was rushing off back to college we tried for an oil change that turned into a tow to the dealership (2012 / 110K). I have two questions for the forum.

    1) Any idea what the oil change process / tech could have done to kill the HV battery?

    2) Since the HV battery was suspect I started looking into the quality of the battery. Wondering if anyone might give me some idea if the readings below look very bad? After looking at the options I purchased the prolong battery conditioner. I'll be installing it tomorrow. Curious if anyone has an impression if this HV battery looks "bad"?

    She had an oil change indicator light that had come on before she left school (Mid December). So we decided to use the local Jiffy Lube to get a quick oil change before she left. When we returned from Dinner the oil change technician was working to reset the oil indicator. He had been at it for a while without success. I watched a you tube video quick and showed him how to do it (got it reset first try). I'm not clear what all he had "tried" to clear the code. But when my daughter went start the car it started up with all the classic dead HV battery indicators (red triangle, all the safety lights, check hybrid system / pull over safely).

    The car would barely pull across the parking lot - then wouldn't go at all. We had it towed to the dealer. They told me that I "probable" needed a new HV battery. The indicated that they had charged it up and it would be fine for a while (the dealer quoted me $4100 BTW).

    Some important background (maybe). The car had been sitting for a couple of weeks while we were traveling. The jiffy lube is about 10 miles from our house.

    Any ideas what might have happen to drain the battery?

    I haven't been happy with the quality of the HV battery since we purchased the car. I swear the ECM warrenty update made the milage go from 50MPG to 40MPG. Up until this week I hadn't bother to spend much time looking at it. So I purchased an OBDII reader and downloaded Torque. This a summary of a good drive based on what I understand to be possiable ways to evaluate the battery cells.

    upload_2017-1-7_22-21-52.png

    So as I understand it larger variation between loaded and unloaded voltage is worse. All cells performed within .15 Volts.

    upload_2017-1-7_22-21-11.png

    I took several looks at the variance of individual cell voltage from average. I looked at this both while the cells were charging and discharging. Bank one looks to be the worse. About 10% of the sample readings were greater then .1999 volts from the average of the other cells. From what I've seen in other posts this doesn't look to be extreme?

    upload_2017-1-7_22-22-8.png

    This is the measurement I understand the least. All of the cells were consistent in their internal resistance readings across every sample. Here again Bank One stands out a little.

    Anyone have an opinion about the quality of this battery? This battery doesn't look "that bad" to me based on what I've seen. That said - I don't feel like the car run's effectively on Battery. Especially in the morning by the time I get to work it seems to work work better on battery. So I'm definitely going to try the conditioner.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. tankyuong

    tankyuong Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2012
    1,555
    660
    0
    Location:
    Central MO
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius c
    Model:
    II
    Might not be the battery. Check the intake hose of the throttle body if that's loose it will give you a triangle too,also hook it up to see codes
     
  3. tankyuong

    tankyuong Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2012
    1,555
    660
    0
    Location:
    Central MO
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius c
    Model:
    II
    If car was on and neutral that would kill the battery
     
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    24,035
    15,649
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    Here's the thing. Those aren't just the "classic dead HV battery indicators". Those are the indicators of any problem at all that the HV computer has detected, serious enough to warrant failsafe mode, and wants to tell you about.

    You're jumping the gun by miles to be deep-diving into the battery (or anything else really), before having the codes read to find out exactly what the HV computer is trying to tell you about. There are hundreds of possibilities. Let it tell you what it is notifying you about.

    Then, once you've posted those codes, if they do indicate a battery problem (of which there are several different kinds), or if they indicate a problem somewhere entirely else, we'll know where to focus next.

    -Chap
     
    Lightning Racer and fotomoto like this.
  5. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

    Joined:
    May 11, 2005
    108,918
    49,500
    0
    Location:
    boston
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    is there any oil in it?
     
  6. JimN

    JimN Let the games begin!

    Joined:
    Nov 26, 2006
    7,028
    1,116
    0
    Location:
    South Jersey
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    V
    Or way too much oil in it?
     
    bisco likes this.
  7. ericbecky

    ericbecky Hybrid Battery Hero

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2004
    4,371
    3,222
    1
    Location:
    Madison, Wisconsin
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Model:
    Two
    It is because they overfilled the oil.

    Classic mistake.

    Overfilling oil will throw codes that appear to be hybrid system related. But the real problem is the overfill.
    Call me if you want to discuss more.

    Edit: Here is a thread that from a couple months ago that had errors due to an oil overfill.
    2007 Prius - Misfire codes and Car won't drive or reverse | PriusChat
     
  8. philipkolterman

    philipkolterman Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2016
    3
    0
    0
    Location:
    US
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    III
    The dealership said the car had a p0a80 code. That said I think they might just told me that because I questioned how they knew it needed a new battery.

    1483913285520.jpg

    When I got my obdii tool I looked for set codes with torque and didn't see any fault codes. I will check again in a few days after I get the first conditioning cycle with the prolong.

    Attached is a picture of the dip stick. This was taken with engine warm (15mins after a 10 mile drive back from church). Is there any way to tell from this if it's over filled?

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
  9. ericbecky

    ericbecky Hybrid Battery Hero

    Joined:
    Mar 12, 2004
    4,371
    3,222
    1
    Location:
    Madison, Wisconsin
    Vehicle:
    2005 Prius
    Model:
    Two
    Keep it below the "full" mark.

    After getting it to the correct level go and clean out the a intake.
    There will be some oil there. Sop up the excess.
    And since your are right there, if it were me I'd clean the throttle body and the Mass Airflow Sensor as well.
     
  10. philipkolterman

    philipkolterman Junior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 11, 2016
    3
    0
    0
    Location:
    US
    Vehicle:
    2008 Prius
    Model:
    III
    I'll work to clean it up and report back.
     
  11. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

    Joined:
    May 11, 2005
    108,918
    49,500
    0
    Location:
    boston
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    it's upside down, but looks okay. the prius dipstick is difficult to read.
     
  12. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

    Joined:
    Mar 30, 2008
    24,035
    15,649
    0
    Location:
    Indiana, USA
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    I don't know about Torque and Gen 3 specifically, but it could need some custom definitions added before being able to read codes from all the relevant Prius computers. If you run into a situation where the notification lights are on but Torque is showing "no codes", it'll be a matter of checking with other Gen 3 Torque users to work out what needs to be configured.

    -Chap
     
  13. tankyuong

    tankyuong Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2012
    1,555
    660
    0
    Location:
    Central MO
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius c
    Model:
    II
    You need techstream to read the codes
     
  14. stockdaddy

    stockdaddy Member

    Joined:
    Feb 27, 2015
    208
    56
    0
    Location:
    Missouri
    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
    Model:
    II
    It's pretty normal for cells to be within .3 volts of each other. DC the 12 volt battery will clear the codes. You will probably need to drive it around to find out which battery module is bad. (1v difference from others)