No READY light, no errors (P0000), replaced LV battery already

Car at the dealer now. FRankly, I hope it is the inverter. They upped their service charge to a minimum of $255 to just look at the car for diagnosis. <sigh>

 

LOL. Welcome to Silicon Valley. Now you understand why I was so desperately trying to fix this myself and treating the dealer as the absolute last resort. Being without a job adds to the "pucker factor," so to speak.

 

@rjparker wins the prize! The dealership has confirmed that the inverter is faulty and they are replacing it under warranty. As such, the $255 diagnostic fee is also being waived of course. The only thing I'm out is a bunch of time, the purchase of an OBD2 scanner that I might not have gotten otherwise (but never a bad thing to have), and a battery that I likely did not need to replace. The latter was $180 but the original unit was also 5 years old so maybe replacing it isn't such a horrible thing.

What I gained was a lot of knowledge and that is always valuable! I also have an immense amount of respect for the help that you all provided. On my side, I've tried to document all of the various states and bits of information about my car. Hopefully this will be of use to someone that gets driven to the thread through a search engine. The biggest learning for me is that Toyota doesn't, for some reason, necessarily have error codes show up on the OBD scanner (even Toyota's version) when an inverter has failed. That kind of surprises me but it is what it is...

Thank you all again....
Alan

P.S. For those that wonder, the parts are not in stock so I have to wait until tomorrow for the car to be finished.

 

I don't know but I can ask.... Are you implying that the *new* firmware (assume that is TSB) what caused the failure? That would seem like a regression. New things should rectify problems that were found in older versions.

 

Dealer is not very forthcoming with information, unfortunately. All the guy said is that the new inverter will have all the latest firmware as provided by Toyota.

However, there is a rub... They have installed the new inverter but a bunch of the warning lights are still coming on. At present, the technician isn't sure why so they are going to have a different person look at the car. The new estimate is that they will not have the car done until late Friday. That will mean they will have had the car for four days. Oh well, as long as it is fixed without any cost to me...

Alan

 

Well, this is interesting... The inverter is replaced but now they are saying that the steering clock-spring is bad and causing the warning light. There is also a ground fault that may be fixed by the clock spring replacement (they are not sure). But here is the kicker. This car *never* had a waring light come on prior to the inverter fiasco. Now, I get that the two two, clock spring (assuming ground fault is the spring) and inverter, seem like they should be completely unrelated. But it is also *awfully* coincidental that we suddenly have another warning light come on. Grrr.

The worst thing is that they want $1300 to replace the clock spring. I simply cannot justify that. It looks to be a fairly easy repair, although I hate messing around anywhere near the airbag. I don't think there is any question that in my present situation that this is going to be a DIY fix though. My question is what to get, however. An OEM clock-spring is something like $500. An after market is around $50. Normally I like OEM but that is an awfully big difference.... Thoughts?

 

I considered a used one but then I got a bit nervous about it... They don't handle over-travel well, apparently, and will break (i.e. they are fragile). Not knowing the history of a pulled item from a crunched car, it just seems a little risky to me. But a new Toyota OEM one is $525 so I'm tempted to try the $20 after-market. That seems too good to be true though so I'm worried there too... Maybe it will last a few years until I have a job.

The bigger issue, however, is that the sensor will need to be calibrated. It sounds like you got away with not needing to do that, @jerrymildred. I have yet to find a definitive calibration process for a 2012 Prius V. There a good number of "this works on all Toyota" YouTube videos but an explicit Prius V one hasn't been found yet. Also, I get the feeling that the sanctioned approach is to use the Toyota software but the YouTube versions are all shorting two pins in the OBD connector (that "feels" kind of hokey to me...)

Alan

 

At this point, because there is a fault with the sensor, my understanding is that it has to be recalibrated; a simple replacement will not fix the problem.

My concern about using a part pull is two-fold. First, the spring seems to be a wear item. Buying a used one seems like it might be something that may already be in poor shape or not last long. Second, if the wrecker didn't tape the sensor then I could end up installing a damaged sensor. Given that the damage is apparently not visible, I'm not wanting to take that risk. Maybe if I pulled the unit myself that would be better.

Still looking for the calibration procedures on the sensor. As of now, I'll be installing an aftermarket one in there and pray.... I don't even know why Toyota needs a position sensor for the steering wheel, but the tech said it is not a safety item.

Here is an interesting learning from the dealer yesterday. He said the problem with the sensor (according to the tech) may actually be from the towing. That would make sense given that I never had a warning light when the car was last driven. According to the tech, a Prius should be towed on a flat bed. Mine was towed in the traditional fashion (front lifted)... I had a (gentle) conversation with the owner of the towing company and, although very diplomatic, he didn't think that towing could cause a fault there. He was going to talk with the dealership, etc, etc. I don't have any real hope that the towing company will pay, frankly, but it is worth a try.

Does anyone know where there may be official Toyota documentation on how to tow a Prius? [edit: never mind, the manual shows that the method employed was sanctioned... cradle under the front wheel approach]:

http://www.mytoyo.com/images/pages/3/page.h7.jpg

 

I thought I'd give my final chat on this whole debacle....

I opened a case with Toyota about the warning light that *NEVER* was on prior to the inverter failing and the recording of a "High Voltage" error in the OBD2. Unfortunately, to go anywhere with this, I had to agree to 2 hours of labor for diagnosing the problem. At $170/hr that was $340. In the end, Toyota agreed to pay half the price of the part/installation and the diagnosis fee. That meant I had to pay $650 out of my pocket.

Frankly, I have mixed feelings about this. I had to take a gamble that they would pay. If I didn't take their offer I'd have still owed the $340. So my option was really paying either $340 or $650. I'm grateful they did something so that is a plus. I'm less that thrilled too, however, because I'm 100% sure there was **NO** problem before the inverter failed. I agree that it seems strange that the sensor would fail but voltage spikes do funny things. Anyhow, being unemployed isn't a time to dump $650 into a stupid car. I'd have rather repaired it all myself with the $18 aftermarket part. But, again, my choice really wasn't between $18 and $650, it was between $340 and $650.

Other than moaning about the spiral cable, I wanted to take the opportunity to provide a bit more detail on the inverter... Apparently the whole unit did not need to be replaced. The failure was actually in the IGBT transistors that are at the bottom of the inverter assembly (no giant surprise there). Some have stated that the whole inverter needs to be replaced. That is not accurate. Toyota only replaced the lower section (know as the 'POE') along with some gaskets, grease, coolant, etc.

I guess that is the end of my chronology of the inverter saga. Thanks to all who provided assistance and suggestions.

 

They were not clear on that when I asked.... All I can tell you is that the car had undergone regular dealer maintenance with the last visit in February. One would hope/expect that a Toyota dealer would perform all open updates that are provided by Toyota when a vehicle is in the dealer's shop. Hope and reality may be two different things. YMMV

 

I'm confused... The inverter or the spiral cable? The inverter was fully covered by Toyota. In California we have a 10 year, 150,000 mile warranty on the hybrid components of the car. As such, the inverter repair was paid by Toyota even though the warranty on the rest of the car had expired.

The issue with the spiral cable is another matter. Toyota agreed to pay half of that, which left me with $650 remaining. My understanding is that Toyota refuted the belief that the two problems (inverter and steering wheel position sensor) were related to one one another. All I can say is that the car had *never* had any warning lights in its entire life, including up to the point the inverter died. That event occurred and wham, I suddenly had a traction warning that was deemed to be due to the steering wheel position sensor (built into the spiral cable housing so that whole thing needed replacement). There was also a high voltage error ID within the ECU. My thought is that the HV may well have damaged the steering wheel sensor, in which case Toyota should pay for the whole thing.... Proving that is not so easy, but it is all too coincidental IMHO.