Check Hybrid System - No shift to drive/Reverse - ICE not running

I was driving on the freeway and suddenly the car came to a crawl. It didnt die but it was going really slow and the dash was saying "check hybrid system stop vehicle in safe place". So I pulled over near an off ramp and turned the car off. Turned it back on and same thing. I noticed the Internal combustion engine wasnt running so it was just driving on battery. I drove it about 100 yards down the off ramp and into a grocery store parking lot and called a tow truck and towed it home.

The next morning I turned it on and the car would not shift into drive or reverse. I checked the 12v battery and it was 11.3v on the diagnostic page screen and with my hand held. The 12v was the original that came with the car.. so it was due for a change. I ended up buying a new 12v battery but no joy. Car still wont shift into gear and the dash is lit up with all sorts of lights including the CEL and the check hybrid system message.

I have 2 bars in gas so I dont think I ran out of fuel.. I tried to use a cheap CEL checker but it said no codes. Any Ideas whats going on? Ive uploaded a picture of the dash with the lights and the cheap obdII scanner I tried. Car has 120k.

 

Hey thanks for the reply! Forgive my ignorance..does this mean rip hybrid battery? I was hoping this would be something less serious.. If so I hope the battery is under warranty still? Someone mentioned to me that Toyota warranty's the hybrid battery for 10yrs/150k and im at 120k and a couple months shy of 10yrs.

 

Ok Ill look into that.

No I havent.. I saw that yesterday when I entered my vin on the toyota website .. Thats the E0E or something like that I think yeah?

Looks like Im gonna have to find a gas tank. I would have thought to bars was enough to be ok per say.. Is there a chance that my gas meter is bad or are these things not very accurate on these cars?

 

Hey Bisco, I got a gas can today and threw about two gallons in it bringing me to about 4 bars but its not trying to start or shift. It just goes into neutral and that's about it. Now that I think about it when I installed the new 12v battery... on first start the Internal combustion engine did come on and it did shift into gear but the check hybrid system message was still on the screen accompanied with all the lights on the dash being on so I just turned it off. Further attempts to turn on the car have since failed. Should I unplug the 12v battery and let it sit for a bit before trying to start it again or was that a coincidence?

I ordered a mini vci cable and a Bluetooth obdII scanner and they should be here late tomorrow night. I'm preparing an older laptop and with a 32bit os and Im crossing my fingers that I get answers but Ive never used Techstream before so we shall see. In the meantime maybe I will add one more gallon in the morning and see what that does.

 

I gave that a shot with no luck.. I tried both 10 and 20 seconds separately..

I purchased a Panlong obdII bluetooth device but I couldnt get it to connect. Just wouldnt show up in blue tooth devices in dr prius. When I plug it in into the port on the car a lil red light comes on and thats it. I thought I could use it read the codes but no joy.. I will try again later and see if I can get it to connect.

and to add to my luck the vendor on amazon who I purchased the mini vci cable from sent me a link to the Techstream software on a filesharing website and included some cryptic instructions. Im going to make an Image of my os installation before moving forward. Cant believe its this hard to get fault codes on a prius.

Man Im in denial right now.. How did you know? The new 12v battery reads 11.7 with a multimeter directly attached to the battery. The prius diagnostic screen says its 11.6v. This reading should be 12v and above if im not mistaken on a new battery yeah?

(If i didnt say it before, thanks to everyone in this thread who is trying to help me with this)

 

So it turns out Autozone did give me a bad battery but when I went to return it they didnt have any there and in any store in a 50 mile radius! I ended up having to return it and I went to Orielly and bought a battery there. I told them what happened and they actually gave me a discount and had me walk in the back of the store with my volt meter to compare results before I left the store and it was a 12.5 on the new battery they sold me. Unfortunate that it didnt solve my problems but I did manage to get a fault code after getting the obdII reader to pair finally. P0A1A, P0A94P0A94 which I think is an inverter. (Attached screenshot) I posted what happened at the dealer below in the reply to jerrymildred.

Man I wish I could download your experience right now matrix style! haha..

Thanks for chiming in.. I did exactly that and got a code, Initially it was a failure on my end in terms of pairing the obdII.. I got the panlong obdII bluetooth reader and used dr prius like you said and I got a P0A1A, P0A94P0A94.

When I looked to see if there was a recall it looked like it should be covered by the JOV reference ID. I typed my vin into the toyota website and it was listed as something that need to be done.

I ended up talking it to the dealership today and they said they would get back to me by end of day or tomorrow and when I mention the inverter and the recall he said the recall was just for a "software update" and tried to sell me some 120k mileage service @$1197 on top of what ever is wrong with my car! Ive attached the screenshot from the toyota website that states they would fix it if there was an inverter failure related to the JOV recall but im not sure how to prove this was related to that since all I know is that I got the inverter fault code and the car stalled on me on the freeway. (P0A1A, P0A94P0A94)

 

Im going to look into a battery charger for the 12 volt so that I can have something in house and I will use that to top off the battery when needed as sometimes I dont drive the car for a week +.

On a good note! I just got a call from the service manager at the dealership where I had my car towed and he said it was the ICM module and that it was covered by an extended warranty! He said the part will not come in until Thursday or Friday tho so I don't imagine the car will be done until late next week or the week after. I guess supply chain issues are front and center.

Anyway.. Thank you very much for your help with this. Its much appreciated! A special shot out and thank you to bisco, jerrymildred, 2010moneypit? and everyone else who tried to help me put a finger on the problem.

To everyone else reading this in the future, if you get a P0A1A and "all the lights" on the dash come on including the check hybrid warning system then check the Inverter Control Module.