I bought a Prius | Column

Caperix said:

Question for the gen 2 Prius experts here. My wife's 2006 has began intermittently throwing hv battery codes, surprisingly my launch scanner that is normally very good at near factory level diagnosis will only pull generic codes from it, p3000, p0a80, c1241 & c1310.

So I need to look into with drprius or tech stream to see if I can narrow it down.  Any recommendations as far as battery, rebuild/replace?

The car uses a bit of oil so I am not sure if we will keep it long enough to justify a new Toyota battery, but would like to get a few more years out of it

This p3000 turned out to be a wiring problem for the battery fan, located in the trunk, above the 12v battery. 

https://www.torquenews.com/8113/toyota-prius-p3000-check-replacing-your-hv-battery

Techstream video when I searched p0a80

Here's an old screen shot of how I have my Torque Pro set up (it's highly customizable)...  

Taken Aug 29th.  In the first box of second to last row we see that the outside temp that day, at that moment, was 87.8 degrees.  In that same row, last box we also see that the Hybrid battery fan speed was 0.0 (it is otherwise a 3 speed fan, zero means off)

The incoming air temp at the rear seat air intake was 86.4 then the first half battery temp was 90.4 and the second half temp was 93.5 and at exit it was 90.0.  These temps under 100 is a good thing.  All was good and the system was satisfied enough that the fan remained off.  If you have a bad cell, you might have high heat.  

Thanks for that info, I had heard of Dr Prius but torque pro is new to me. I have a few USB to obd2 cables I am going to try out with the free techstream download this weekend, if those do not work I am going to order a Bluetooth obd2 adapter & try Dr Prius or torque pro.

Reading your thread it looks like you have not had to replace a hv battery on any of yours yet, have you done any research on options?  I want to see how many cells are showing weak than decide if it is worth trying to replace the bad cells, or spend the money on a new battery & be done with it.

The hv battery is still showing charging in the display & the car is running off battery normally right now, so there is hope that it is something else that the software will show.  Right now the only issue she has noticed other than the lights is the brakes feel different, I'm guessing due to a change in regeneration braking due to the traction control light being on.

Strangely my scanner shows c1310 as being an active booster solenoid fault, but everything on Google for that fault comes up as a hv battery fault

Caperix said:

... if those do not work I am going to order a Bluetooth obd2 adapter & try Dr Prius or torque pro.

Following this article from the Dr. Prius app, I am very happy with the Panlong OBD2 adaptor.  Make note of the discount code given which put it at around $11. 

Custom Gen2 stuff for Torque Pro which is android only.  If you're Apple then you'll have to go Dr, Prius.  

I have never had hybrid battery issues and I have never opened up the case.  But, I've watched videos about it.  There are tons of videos.  Watch a few.  Best I can tell the biggest pain of the job is the 1 hour spent removing plastic.  You see, to get to the hybrid, EVERY PIECE of trunk/cargo trim has to be removed and rear seat unbolted.  I think if I could find a freshened battery for under $500 I might just swap in a whole fresh/tested unit.  I think modules, used are like $100 and you'll need a couple anyway.  The delta of buy/build seems to be just a couple hundred.  

I'd like to hear where you get lightstream and if its a good load.  My copy has been less than ideal.  

Sorry for the delay, the intermittent warning lights became the car would drop out of ready at stop lights in less than a week.  I did get a chance to drive her car myself & the charge & discharge rates on the battery were only a few minutes from full to dead.  So given that info I looked into the quickest source for a battery.  My local Toyota dealer had one in stock.  So today I replaced the high voltage battery.  Not a bad job at all, I was surprised how much I had to swap over from the old battery, but the bolt on terminals all had quite a bit of corosion. As of now no more lights, I still need to look into trying to get tech stream working, my wife found the free download, I will see if I can find the site again.

While experiencing a rental Prius for a week, I grew weary of the constant nagging of those additional "operational parameters" after a day or so. Sure, it was interesting at first, but ultimately tiresome. Just shut up and let me drive, car.

The Prius is to fuel economy what the GT3 RS is to lap times.

#ShrugLife

Considering that the newer TNGA based Prius has skidpad numbers in the realm of the old Supras, on whatever factory tires they use, I'd be kinda curious to see how one would do in an autocross situation. I bet it would be surprisingly fun with a wheel/tire setup.

It's really fun learning to drive a Prius quickly.

One thing on an XW20 like yours: Tires are critical, particularly in slippery weather. The "traction control" under acceleration on these works primarily by cutting power to the engine, presumably to protect what they considered a fragile drivetrain. They can be nearly impossible to drive in low traction conditions.

But, I traded mine with 280k miles on it...
 

In reply to etdweasel :

That traction control on the XW20 (gen 2) drives me crazy.  The car has an electric motor drive and a pair of non-driven wheels for speed reference, so there's no reason the traction control can't be excellent.  But instead, it's 1995 GM level of bad power-cutting.  They're also pretty miserable to drive fast in the twisties.  Not because they handle badly, but because of how regen interacts with the friction brakes (grab the brakes gently but suddenly and it'll slam into full regen a 1/2 second later).