So This Happened Yesterday Night and it was BADDDD NEWS BEars

Sorry to hear of your troubles -- please definitely circle back and let us know what the issue turned out to be.

No car is perfect, but should be able to get more than 68K miles, although it is over a decade old. It's often said in this forum that time can be as bad as miles for the Prius. I don't think I'd make a decision to write off an entire brand based on a one-off experience on a car that's a dozen years old.

But I feel your pain -- hopefully it turns out to be something minor.

 

your car is a peach, and will sell for big money right now.

the downside is that you will pay big money to replace it, so shop around before making a decision.

can you tell us what 'below the float, and just won't move' means? i have never heard that terminology before.
i think you really need to have the codes read with tech stream to get a handle on things.

 

A little overdramatic. Now the Prius has been "reduced" to a car that somebody needs to read the trouble codes from. Until then, nobody knows what is at issue, or whether it is a big issue or a small one.

Please post again when the trouble codes are known.

 

nothing wrong with a new mustang ev! get yer wallet ready

 

I'm a little bewildered by "below the float" too, gather the hybrid battery is kaput?

Consider battery replacement? Maybe New Prius Batteries?

 

Let's not get too far out in front of learning what the car even wants to tell us about.

 

Find someone who can help you with repairs and this website will walk you through all the work that needs to be done... Your Prius still has many more years of life in it and if you repair DIY style you'll be looking at only 10% the cost a Toyota Stealership would charge. First step is to get one of these tools: Hybrid battery diagnostic and repair tool for Toyota and Lexus and then install Dr. Prius app on your phone to read and clear the error codes and subcodes. Once you know those we can walk you through your repair options based on what you can afford.

 

Something I think I've seen about the Dr. Prius app on here is that it has a screen to show you codes from the engine control module, and a screen to show you codes from power management control ECU, but no screens to show you codes from any of the two dozen other ECUs in a Gen 3 Prius.

For a first-time scan of this car, it might be worth using a scan tool that will report all the codes. That could probably even be just another phone app and use the same dongle as Dr. Prius.

 

Yes, Dr. Prius app only gives you the basc data you need to make the most common repairs, not all the data for all possible repairs.

Why I prefer it this method is that the OBD2 bluetooth device fits in the glove box and safely pulling it out to screen capture/read and clear an error code while driving only takes about 30 seconds... Powering up an old windows laptop and running Toyota Techstream to diagnose can't be safely & quickly done while driving.

 

That's fine, and that's why I suggested just getting another (pretty much any other) OBD-II phone app to install on the same phone and use with the same Bluetooth device.

It is a curious and unusual feature of Dr. Prius that it only shows you codes from two ECUs. A typical way to write a code retrieval routine is to just send a broadcast query for trouble codes and display all the responses. Where Dr. Prius shines is the extra battery-related information you can use when your interest is in preening your battery. But when you're just facing a car that has warning lights and you don't know why yet, the first step is finding out what the codes are, and a less-specialized app that just gathers the codes and shows you can be a better fit for that job.

 

In emails with Jack over the years I go the impression that he made decision to limit functionality of the app due to concerns about infringing on Toyota patents and copyrights... He actually was even planning to NOT call it Dr. Prius app, but Dr. Hybrid app for this reason. But then he got word through the grapevine that Toyota was ok with him using the word Prius in his product name and he didn't have anything to worry about. And yes, while it's frustrating to have warning lights that Dr. Prius app can't retrieve the error codes for that has only happened to me one time out of 50 or so times... So not too big of a deal...

 

Just curious what is so special about this car to cost so much at 5 years old.

 

He is saying it cost $27,500 to buy with interest I would assume and he took seven years to pay it off.

I would suspect his hv battery is coding based on "traction battery is below the float" (voltage). I am sure something was lost in translation but the dealer probably scared him with a $4,000 estimate when $1,600 to $2,400 new is possible. It could have been a brake booster (more money than a new battery). an inverter failure (also more than a battery but likely covered by Toyota) or the increasingly common blown head gasket (don't ask). All of these gen3 hybrid failures are largely independent of low miles and careful driving.

 

Because of the way the car's ECUs exchange information, it's nearly always the case that when there are codes in either of the two ECUs that Dr. Prius will show you codes from, there are also codes in other ECUs. Often we can guess what those other codes are going to be, and therefore assume we don't need to see them, as long as there aren't also others.

So the thing that only happened to you one time out of 50 was ... actually caring about the codes you weren't seeing. And that's ok.

But for helping somebody out over the internet where I'm already handicapped by being hundreds of miles away from the car, it is easier just to have all of the codes to look at. And again, that's really not hard. Smartphones let you install more than one app. You can have Dr. Prius on there and also any less-specialized app that just retrieves codes, but doesn't limit them to two ECUs like Dr. Prius does. They'll probably both be able to work with the same hardware dongle. Technology is wunnerful!

 

now you are probably going too far in the other direction. a blown head gasket looms large, and possibly an expensive brake actuator.
you don't need to gush over toyota for us, we're (mostly) realists

ps; have you done an egr circuit cleaning yet?

 

As more and more EVs come to market people are going to have to shift from miles to time as being more relevant. The car having 68k miles is irrelevant when the batteries fail more over time then mileage.

These whole sobb story style rant are going to become more and more common. It's a decade old hybrid that has very light use. Things age out and they don't just last forever. Find the issue, fix it for relatively short money and keep on driving or buy another EV type car that is going to have similar issues (and cost $30k+).

 

I blown my motor twice on my 1999 Civic, first due to my incompetence, 2nd time due to the harmonic balancer just going out (an afterthought why we didn't replace it). Third motor from Japan, if it blows again, I'll still repair the thing.

edit: sleep on it, maybe a few nights, I wouldn't quit on it just yet.

 

There's different levels of analysis when working on a car... Each successive level is more thorough and detailed. And perhaps the worst and most vague initial level is someone who doesn't know much about cars trying to explain their symptoms on PriusChat. If you tell those folks to install Toyota Techstream on an old laptop, that's probably not going to happen. Even Dr. Prius app is hard to make sense of at first for folks who don't have much experience. That's why known problems, is usually the first thing to talk about.