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P0A94 code. Will not go into "ready" mode. Won't start :-(

Discussion in 'Prius v Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by bcganong, May 18, 2020.

  1. bcganong

    bcganong Junior Member

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    Help please! My family and I were out for a drive today. We have driven about 30 min and stopped at shop for a little over an hour. We got in our 2012 Prius v and drove about 500 feet and the car just quit and stopped. It will not start, the "ready" light does not come on and it will not go into gear, just neutral and the "park" flashes on the dash until you put it back in park. I got it towed home and put my code reader on it and got P0A94 DC/DC converter performance. I've taken the 12v battery out and placed it on a 2 amp trickle charger overnight. I'll reinstall it in the am and see what happens. Any suggestions or previous experience with this? 2012 Prius v with 106,000 miles... Update the battery was a 13.3v when I took it off the charger. Reinstalled the battery and no change. The battery is between 12.2 and 12.5v installed. Is this normal?
     
    #1 bcganong, May 18, 2020
  2. rjparker

    rjparker Tu Humilde Sirviente

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    There will be lots of people who say change this cheap part or refill that reservoir but you probably need a new or repaired inverter/converter, a known problem on these years, including my own. When a Prius stops running and throws a hybrid code its serious. However you may qualify for free work at the dealer, so don’t hesitate to see the man. 0ECEC2D8-C00F-4CF1-93FB-E6F742886E5C.jpeg
     
    #2 rjparker, May 18, 2020
    Mendel Leisk and bcganong like this.
  3. bcganong

    bcganong Junior Member

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    I'm hoping that it will be covered under the recall. The issue I may have is that it is a US car I have in Canada. Theres the same recall here in Canada as well, just expecting the run around or technicality of being a US car . Hoping I'm wrong!
     
    #3 bcganong, May 18, 2020
  4. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    When a Prius stops running and throws a hybrid code, you want to get a code reader and read that code. There are more than a hundred possibilities, and they are not all cataclysmic. If you're not sure whether to believe me or rjparker, take a glance in the repair manual and start counting.

    Even narrowed down to the main code P0A94, that code happens to be one with seventeen different subcodes that a good code reader can retrieve. Taking as an example just the first of those possible subcodes (127), you can see there are a bunch of possible trouble areas that could be causing it:

    [​IMG]

    This is why repair technicians have not all been replaced by robots that read trouble codes and blindly replace parts. There has to be somebody who looks at that code, goes to the car with some meters and tools, follows the troubleshooting steps in the manual, finds out what is causing the code, and then fixes that.

    If that turns out to be the inverter, by all means, replace the inverter. If that isn't the inverter, replacing the inverter will be quite the expensive way to not fix the problem.

    It all boils down to somebody finding out what the problem is, first.
     
    #4 ChapmanF, May 18, 2020
  5. rjparker

    rjparker Tu Humilde Sirviente

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    Or go to the dealer
     
    #5 rjparker, May 18, 2020
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  6. rjparker

    rjparker Tu Humilde Sirviente

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    Be sure to let us know the result.
     
    #6 rjparker, May 19, 2020
    kutcht1 likes this.
  7. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Absolutely. If they propose to replace the inverter on their own nickel, you at least get a new inverter out of it, and if it wasn't the problem, they will probably go on and fix that on their nickel too.

    If they propose to replace the inverter on your nickel, be sure they followed their own troubleshooting steps to pin it down as the problem, first.
     
    #7 ChapmanF, May 19, 2020
  8. bcganong

    bcganong Junior Member

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    Went and had the 12v battery load tested and it was fine. Stopped into the local Toyota dealer and they ran the vin and showed that it did not have the two inverter recalls done. So, it's booked to go in to have the recalls done on June 1st. Fingers crossed
     
    #8 bcganong, May 20, 2020
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