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

Driving with a degraded hybrid battery (P0A80/P3017 code).

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Till Hoffmann, Feb 22, 2023.

Tags:
  1. Till Hoffmann

    Till Hoffmann New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2022
    5
    1
    0
    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius
    Model:
    Three
    Our 2013 Prius (190k miles) threw up the "check hybrid system; stop the vehicle in a safe place" message and the dashboard lit up with the triangle of death, traction control, engine check light, and ((!)). The hybrid battery fan is also running at top speed. The fault codes are P0A80 and P3017; the battery evidently needs some attention.

    Unfortunately, my wife needs the car for work tomorrow, and we can't get an alternative car before she leaves in the morning. Is feasible to drive the vehicle in its current condition or would we risk ruining the rest of the battery or even have safety concerns? The trip is 60 miles each way.

    Some context in case it's helpful:
    - we haven't felt any sluggishness but don't drive the car very aggressively (but don't know how it was driven before we got it in September).
    - some cells were replaced by the second-hand dealer we got the car from.
    - fuel efficiency seemed reasonable in the past weeks (40 to 50 mpg).
    - it had an oil change about a week ago, but I imagine they didn't check the battery.
     
    #1 Till Hoffmann, Feb 22, 2023
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2023
  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Nov 29, 2020
    10,104
    1,742
    0
    Location:
    Durham NC
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    Base
    The batteries already been played with for one round of whack a mole . Get ready to buy a new rack of cells about 700 plus from hybrid doctor on e bay he's in VA DC area . Or you can bite the bullet and buy a new Toyota battery I've done both I'm driving an '09 with a brand new Toyota battery that's I put in I don't know about 8 months ago now and I have a 2013 persona with a hybrid doctor rebuilt battery that my wife drives similar to the way it sounds like yours does and we've been very happy with the rebuilt battery that the hybrid doctor in Fredericksburg did very happy was about $680 from the guy in Fredericksburg and he sells the racks on eBay ready to go all built up and checked within three Delta or something like that we've been very happy had I known about him before I bought the new battery for the '09 I might have gone to see him for the '09s battery I just didn't know of him.
     
    Till Hoffmann likes this.
  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

    Joined:
    May 11, 2005
    109,734
    49,860
    0
    Location:
    boston
    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius Plug-in
    Model:
    Plug-in Base
    you can drive it. agree with tom, your best bet is a new battery
     
  4. Till Hoffmann

    Till Hoffmann New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2022
    5
    1
    0
    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius
    Model:
    Three
    Thank you both! Shame that it looks like a new battery is required.

    Having said that, I've been doing some more digging to get a better understanding of how the car works. As part of the journey, I'm now somewhat hopeful that replacing one or two bad cells might keep it going for a little while longer. Details below, would love your input.

    I appreciate this is likely a game of whack-a-mole. But we may have to move without being able to take the car in the next year, making whack-a-mole somewhat more appealing than buying a new battery.

    Anyway, here are some more details. We took the car for a short drive with reasonable acceleration and deceleration but nothing extreme. It was reasonably cold at 25 F in case that makes a difference. I collected the voltage of each module continuously using Car Scanner ELM OBD2 and the Veepeak BLE+ adapter recommended by Dr Prius, downsampled the data to one measurement per second, and then calculated the median voltage across all modules for each second. Module 7 identified by code P3017 is an obvious outlier, and the rest of the modules seem to cluster relatively tightly in the figure below.

    upload_2023-2-25_0-18-39.png
    I threw out module 7 for any further investigations because it's obviously dodgy. To get a better understanding of how the whole pack behaves under load and charging, I calculated the deviance between each module voltage and the median voltage in the pack to see how much of a misfit each one is. The figure below shows a scatter plot of the deviance against voltage of each module; each point represents a one-second interval.

    upload_2023-2-25_0-40-57.png

    Even though this doesn't tell me whether the modules are shot, it at least looks like they're somewhat similarly shot because the deviances are relatively small. For about 80% of the drive we had the absolute voltage difference less than 0.15V, and it never exceeded 0.2V (ignoring module 7, of course). Modules 1 and 6 look a bit over- and undercharged, respectively. Modules 3, 5, and 14 maybe need a bit of care because their voltage is below the pack at low voltages and above at high voltages, suggesting that their capacity may be degraded.

    My current plan is to replace one or both cells in module 7, cycle 3, 5, and 14 to hopefully get a bit of capacity back, and make sure that voltages are similar for each module (double checking 1 and 6) before reassembling. That plan may of course change after I've opened the can of worms/batteries.

    Any thoughts/suggestions/warnings you may have would be much appreciated.
     
  5. Brian1954

    Brian1954 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2021
    1,010
    365
    0
    Location:
    South Central PA, USA
    Vehicle:
    2011 Prius
    Model:
    III
    It looks like you have done your homework. You have analyzed and presented the information very well in your post.

    I am NOT a battery except, but I have picked up a few things during my 3 years of reading this forum. First is to correct some of the terminology that you are using. There are 6 cells (1.2 nominal voltage each) per module. Two modules make a block. Fourteen blocks (28 modules) make up the battery pack. You can not replace a cell, but you can replace modules in your battery pack.

    Code P3017 is "battery block 7 becomes weak", which is what you have already determined. So one or both of the modules that make up block #7 are weak. Looking at the data you posted, it looks like one cell (1.2V nominal) has gone bad in one of the modules in block #7.

    You can buy one or two used modules with about the same capacity as your existing "good" modules and play wack-a-mole OR you can buy a new OEM battery pack. You stated that "- some cells were replaced by the second-hand dealer we got the car from.", so the wack-a-mole was started before you purchase the car in September. Now 5 to 6 month latter, you have another bad module which needs to be replaced.

    How long do you plan on keeping the car? If it less than 2 year, you can play wack-a-mole and plan on replacing more modules every 6 months or so until you get rid of the car. If you plan on keeping the car for 2 or more years, I would buy a new OEM battery pack now and not have to worry about the HV battery for 10 years. Everyone's situation is different (time availability for DIY, financial, time horizon, car dependency, etc) and you can decide what works best for you.
     
  6. Till Hoffmann

    Till Hoffmann New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2022
    5
    1
    0
    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius
    Model:
    Three
    Thanks for correcting the terminology; makes it a lot easier to search the forums.

    The battery is now out, and the bad apple is easily identified: open circuit voltage of 6.88 for module 13 and between 8.09 and 8.18 for the other ones (details below). I'll try and get a better understanding of capacity and voltage under load.

    It looks like the mechanic who previously replaced modules was a bit of a cowboy. A number of clips had been broken off, and cables were not secured. Some of the screws securing the battery in the car were also missing. So maybe a blessing in disguise that we can secure it properly when we put it back.

    Good question. We'll definitely have it for the next year but may be moving without being able to bring the car thereafter, depending on jobs.

    Here are the open circuit voltages.

    Code:
    #    Open circuit voltage
     1    8.17
     2    8.18
     3    8.12
     4    8.15
     5    8.09
     6    8.10
     7    8.14
     8    8.11
     9    8.10
    10    8.15
    11    8.11
    12    8.10
    13    6.88
    14    8.15
    15    8.15
    16    8.15
    17    8.14
    18    8.14
    19    8.13
    20    8.14
    21    8.13
    22    8.11
    23    8.14
    24    8.15
    25    8.13
    26    8.14
    27    8.16
    28    8.17
     
  7. Brian1954

    Brian1954 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2021
    1,010
    365
    0
    Location:
    South Central PA, USA
    Vehicle:
    2011 Prius
    Model:
    III
    Glad to hear that you identified module #13 as being bad. The voltage reading on the other 27 modules look good. Like you already know, the voltage readings alone do not tell you about the capacity or "health" of each module. Are you planning on buying a hobby charger to charge and discharge each module OR are you planning to buy one used module and put the pack back into the car?

    Take a look at 2nd Life Battery. https://2ndlifebattery.com/#1566393090768-a4e8f81f-4561
    Others have recommended them on this forum. Whomever you buy the replacement module from, you want to match the capacity of your existing modules in your pack. You do this by giving the seller the year and mileage for your car.

    Take a look at the serial numbers on your modules. The ones with similar serial numbers should be the original ones when the car was built. Any vastly different serial numbers will be replacement modules. Take a look at this old thread: HV Battery Date Code | PriusChat

    How many replacement modules does your battery pack have?
     
  8. Till Hoffmann

    Till Hoffmann New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2022
    5
    1
    0
    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius
    Model:
    Three
    A bit of a combination. I got an IMAX B6AC v2 charger/discharger to get a rough understanding of what's going on and four second-hand modules arrived from 2ndlifebattery today. Because I don't know the mileage on individual modules in the pack due to previous replacement, I bough the "generic" ones Joe sells on eBay.

    The B6AC only allows up to 5W discharge so I couldn't test under heavy load (well, I'm probably a factor 50 to 100 out from what the battery does in the car). Other than the bad one, each cell dropped between 0.08 and 0.11 V after 2 minutes at 0.6A discharge current. The four replacement modules I received dropped by 0.10 to 0.11V under the same conditions (although starting from a lower open circuit voltage).

    That's a very useful thread. It seems that the pack is a cheerful mixture of two separate packs, both much older (2006) than the car (2013). There are also a few blocks with serials 19700A... which I couldn't match with the pattern in the thread you linked.

    I've put all the results into an online spreadsheet below.

     

    Attached Files:

  9. Brian1954

    Brian1954 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2021
    1,010
    365
    0
    Location:
    South Central PA, USA
    Vehicle:
    2011 Prius
    Model:
    III
    So, the original 2013 battery pack was removed from your car before you purchased it, and mostly 2006 modules were installed. That explains why you are having a battery problem already on a 2013 car. Good thing you purchased 4 replacement modules because you certainly will be playing whack-a-mole until you get rid of the car, OR you buy a new OEM battery pack.

    If it were my car, knowing the age of the modules, I would replace them with a new OEM battery.

    I am glad that I could help you during your adventure with the HV battery.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
    #9 Brian1954, Mar 3, 2023
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2023
  10. AzusaPrius

    AzusaPrius Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 27, 2020
    2,052
    865
    0
    Location:
    California
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    IV
    I would get a battery that is better than OEM, lighter and that will increase your mpg.

    You will not find a better aftermarket HV battery.

    Check the project lithium link in my profile.
     
  11. Till Hoffmann

    Till Hoffmann New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2022
    5
    1
    0
    Location:
    Boston, MA
    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius
    Model:
    Three
    Thank you for all the input. The battery is now back in the car and it seems to be running fine--for now. Fingers crossed we won't have to do it again any time soon, but I'm not holding my breath. Here's the voltage profile over a short period for the different blocks.

    upload_2023-3-6_13-34-8.png
     
    alftoy likes this.