Anybody speak challenge priced Prius?

In reply to John Welsh :

Nice!

In reply to John Welsh :

 That is hilarious

I already have a set of the Audi "supercharged" badges for this one...   

I have one of the cheap cables and Techstream hooked up finally, and that cable and software appear to be working.

I can now communicate with the Power source module, and most of the body modules.

What is not responding is the Engine and ECT, Hybrid Control, HV Battery, Cruise Control, Transmission Control, and SRS airbag.   They are identified in the "health check" as ECU not supported or not responding.   

A Can Bus check gives me "There no system found on the communication bus"

Welp, sounds like you have a bus problem. I really doubt all of those modules are actually not on.  Sent you my phone number in case you can't find wiring diagrams. 

Vigo said:

Welp, sounds like you have a bus problem. I really doubt all of those modules are actually not on.  Sent you my phone number in case you can't find wiring diagrams. 

It had some various codes on almost all of the modules that we're working..  ambient temperature sensor and things like that.

The power source module had unknowns on ready status and on Park indication status.

I sprung 20 bucks already over the weekend to play around on the Toyota information system and downloaded a ton of stuff but there wasn't any easy way I saw to grab the whole repair manual.  

Not much playing with the car as of yet...   but I did find an interesting resource.  

https://www.toyota.com/owners/my-vehicle

Basically after signing up I added the VIN to a list of "my cars" and can pull the full Toyota dealer service history.

The Green Prius (oh yeah...   Dad scored me also Silver one which has been diagnosed with a dead fuel pump for $350 and it should be here Monday)  showed regular service through 108K 5/2015 and then a few more services after that...    and then this..

Now I don't know if one cell in the pack isn't charging properly or not...   But when I disassembled the pack and tested them they all were showing b/t 7.38 and 7.48 volts.   I didn't load test or try and charge any of them.   That being said there were some numbers written on the top of each cell as if maybe the unit I have had been rebuilt or something of the sort.   The #3 cell was written in black permanent marker and slightly different handwriting than the others which were written in purple.

The 12v battery also has a 7/18 date on it.

I assume this was taken somewhere other than the dealer for repairs.    and both batteries were replaced and no solutions found because it is a CAn bus problem of some kind.     Hopefully they didn't damage to many ECMs in the process.

I was thinking...    What about a Hybrid class at the 2020 Challenge?    Or someone has certainly tried to run one of these things at Chump/LeMons, right?

The silver one was just purchased for less than 400 dollars.   It was diagnosed with a bad fuel pump.  I think the sending unit on the is on the fritz (which requires the same replacement of the entire tank to fix) because about a gallon of gas was added and it showed about 2 bars on the gas gauge.   With Red Triangle showing I pulled it on the trailer.    At home I pulled the code P3190.      I cleared that and nothing popped right back up.   I being as it had ran long enough at this point to charge the battery I drove it to gas station and put 10.3 gallons of gas in it...  Took a couple of laps around the block and found no codes.

I guess I am going to have to keep looking for a parts car.    

In reply to ronholm :

So it was empty and diagnosed with a bad pump. Fixed with a gallon of gas for the win. When these were new an aquaintance of mine was the hybrid area rep for Toyota northeast. He said then that 80% of the warrantee claims were cured by adding gas

ronholm said:

I was thinking...    What about a Hybrid class at the 2020 Challenge?    Or someone has certainly tried to run one of these things at Chump/LeMons, right?

There was one at Lemons, with everything pulled out, and power provided by some variety of Harley twin.  IIRC.

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

I remember that! It was really cool.

ronholm said:

I was thinking...    What about a Hybrid class at the 2020 Challenge?   

A "Hybrid" won the overall at $2016. 

In reply to ronholm :

Tell me more about TechStream.  

Do you have a link to share of the reputable source where you bought the software and the cable?  

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

ronholm said:

I was thinking...    What about a Hybrid class at the 2020 Challenge?    Or someone has certainly tried to run one of these things at Chump/LeMons, right?

There was one at Lemons, with everything pulled out, and power provided by some variety of Harley twin.  IIRC.

There's also been at least one run with full stock hybrid gear in place. It had one full race that went well, but another race ended with lots of limp mode and even slower laps.

Wasn’t there a fiero with a Prius hybrid drive added in at the west coast challenge?

That car did actually run in Florida at the 'regular' challenge. 

I recently 'sold' 'my/our/the' prius to FIL this time for sub challenge money. He called me a couple weeks back from the side of the road. I was worried that finally, at 283k miles, it had actually 'broken down'. Turns out it was out of gas. So, as of 283k miles it has still never really broken down. 

I started wanting it back recently. They're so damn good at just being good cars that even though you hate to love it you can't not like it. Just ten minutes ago I tried to put the Prius behind me again by searching CL for a 5spd Echo sedan. No dice. Sigh. 

In reply to TurnerX19 :

123 miles yesterday and no codes...   Gas seems to have fixed it.     While the green one might have a Can Bus problem maybe the silver one just had a Cannabis problem.       

In reply to John Welsh :

I dunno about link sharing for the knockoff Techstream, but I bought it on Amazon from LuckyBuy11.   the software and cable are designed for 32 bit Windows systems, and require pausing any antivirus software because of a couple of changes which have to be made to certian registries.    In the comments quite a few people just have the seller use Team viewer to set the program and driver for the cable up for them.   64 bit windows operating systems sometimes struggle with "older" drivers.    I have messed with all of that stuff before and found the software was easy to install and I had it up and running in no time.   It appears to work perfectly.   I installed it on an older Windows 7 machine I had previously retired.

The only downside I saw is because it isn't registered with Toyota it isn't going to link up to the service manuals nor are you going to have access to reflash any ECU's with the latest software updates, but I dunno if that would be a great idea with the cable supplied anyway.

Ok...  So I decided to get serious again about fixing the Green Prius, and spent about 45 minutes lifting the front of it onto a trailer so I could finagle it into the shop and onto some wheel dollies.  Remember this is after spending about an hour carefully pulling the stubborn little SOB onto my trailer and again having to winch the darn thing off again because not going into ready mode means it won't go into neutral.

I went out to the shop tonight to put together a list for a quick pick and pull run tomorrow, and thought I would check things out on last time.  I got to staring at the interior fuse panel and noticed the fuse that was supposed to be in the #30 spot was in the #31 spot.

It fired right up.   

In reply to ronholm :

That’s awesome!

In reply to Woody :

I checked all those fuses at least three times.  Never even occurred to me until just then one of them was in the wrong place. I am still not sure if I am happy or really upset with myself.

Ha!

So, in the under dash fuse panel, #30 is a 7.5a fuse for Ignition while #31 is unused.  Wow, good find! 

Just to recap... The silver just needed gas. Yeah, you spent $25 in gas to fill the tank but I'll classify that as a $0 fix since you then get the full use of the gas. 

The green then needed a 30 cent fuse but not even the purchase of a 30 cent fuse. It just needed the movement of a 30 cent fuse from the wrong slot to the right slot....net: $0, free fix!  

Winning! 

It still leads me to wonder what problem someone was chasing when they got under the dash and started pulling fuses and accidentally placing them back in the wrong place? 

Was this maybe done at the time of the 12v battery replacement? 

The fuse next to it, #29 is for power outlet, front. Is the cig lighter under the glove box working? Could they have pulled that 15a fuse and replaced it wrongly also? 

In reply to John Welsh :

The story is that it developed a problem so the original owner had somebody or himself tried to replace the Hybrid battery pack as well as the 12 volt battery. The back of the car was all taken apart when I got it.  All the cells in the battery pack have been numbered with a Sharpie marker and a couple of them with a different color and handwriting.  It seems to test out fine though.

The only thing that really seems to be functionally wrong with the green car is the radio volume button isn't working and the passenger side front and driver side rear speakers are not functioning.

The silver car needed ball joints.

Wow... so you got basically newish batteries as well. Well done!!!!

There's accidents and then there's sabotage, don't forget! Someone might have been angling on it so they put in a little bug  to make it 'worthless' planning to scoop it up later and then something happened and they didn't get it and you end up finding their bug.  Just putting that out there.

Anyway, why am i here, i hate wanting a Prius again. I should at least get a plug-in model or something, but i don't want to pay for it. Stupid brain.