Prius (2004-09) :: Battery Dropped To One Bar At Steep Climb
Jul 8, 2011
I recently got my 2007 Prius back from the body shop after a 13k repair following a crash that crumpled my front end. The car seemed to be doing fine, until a long, steep climb had the battery drop to one bar, speed dropping to 40 despite a floored accelerator, and a red triangle that appeared briefly before disappearing just as we completed the climb. It's the dropping speed despite a floored accelerator and the warning light that have me worried.
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A few days ago I posted a thread about losing power on a steep hill climb with a cold engine. I replaced the hybrid battery and all seemed well. A few days later, the problem occurred again--bummer. (The car has 120K miles and has spent most of its life in a hot and mountainous environment, and I knew the hybrid battery was failing, so that's not a problem.)
The car starts the climb OK, gains a few hundred feet in elevation, still has some charge left in the hybrid battery, then loses power, surges a couple of times, then comes to stop. The engine continues to run at idle and I get no warning or check engine lights. The "ready" light stays on. This time, the second time it happened, I turned off the car, turned it back on again immediately, and all was well. The remainder of the 1000' climb went fine. As did several other similar climbs on the same drive. Since then I've climbed this hill with a cold engine without a problem, so it's intermittent.
I hesitate to pay Toyota for a code scan since the check engine light did not come on. Should I do this anyway? My local auto parts store will scan for free, but I know that their scanner will not read Toyota-specific codes, just industry standards.
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I go over a mountain pass, to and from work. It is about a two mile up and down incline/decline. On several occasions while going up the pass,the gas motor has rapidly accelerated at a high rpm. I back off the gas pedal and check the 'battery indicator bars' and there are none. I then drive very slowly to the top of the pass and the batteries quickly recharge on the decline to a color of all light green bars, indicating a full charge. Same experience coming home. Once I do normal town driving, the bars settle around 'four or five blue bars.' Local dealer says there is on problem. I am driving at 55 mph when this happens.
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Excursuin tranny overheated, Motorhome didn't. X transmission overflowed onto exhaust, lots of smoke. Lost a quart. How best to control transmission temps. Is burned tranny fluid okay to use?
Details: We went from Banning, Ca 2000ft to Pine Cove, Ca 7000ft in 23 miles. My wife's father drove the X with the 7,500lb trailer (total 15k?) while I drove the Ford F53 Class A about 28k. We both have the same engine (and transmission as far as I know).
I kept it in drive and he used 2nd all the way up. I have a tuner from 5 Star and pulled over and put it in park when I hit 230 on the transmission. When we checked into the campground I kept it in park idling and he shut the Excursion off. I know we lose HP and liquids boil at lower temps when at altitude, but I feel this could have been avoided with proper use of the transmission and cool down procedure. What is the best way to cool down the transmission? In my Motorhome a huge loud fan kicks on and the temps go down. On the X is there a point where he fan kicks on to cool the tranny? Is it a zero pressure system like the diff? Does it cool faster in Park or Drive (or off)?
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My 2007 Prius has 120,000 miles. I live in a mountainous area. I need to climb 3 miles at 6% grade to get out of my neighborhood. Lately I've been noticing the traction battery loses charge fairly quickly and I've been thinking about replacing the battery. Much of my driving is in steep hills and I run a full charge cycle many times a day, so I guess I should expect some loss of life.
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So I met my wife after work. I was killing some time with my son. We drove across the street, then to a neighboring shopping center. I changed the display to see the more accurate instant MPG and noticed my battery was at 2 bars. This is the first time that's happened, that I'm aware of. During normal operation, it stays at 2 bars above the halfway mark, or above.
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Today I went to the national car test (passed. but), when the car has been returned to me by the employee of national car test center I noticed one bar on the SOC. This happened for the first time.
Additional notes:
1) recently (about 4 weeks ago) I had to temporarily replace for second hand (20 bucks) 12v small auxiliary battery.
2) recently (withing last four weeks) I noticed high temperature in the boot compartment, I tried to investigate and the ducting leading from the HV battery was really hot, which means that my battery was really hot too.
I tried to explain this to myself that this might be due to HV operating at higher levels due to unknown state of the replaced 12v small aux battery (second hand product).
3) Today I noticed that technician at the test center used some spring assisted bar to press the brake on the car while he tested the car, I recon that maybe he have had powered off the car while doing so, is it possible that this might have contributed to the dropped SOC ?- it's just my guess.
I'm thinking to replace 12v aux battery to brand new battery and then test the operation of the fan and whether the temperature still rise. - is it good idea? Or should I just seek for the testing tool to determine the status of each of the modules?
If so, which testing device can handle this task? I heard from this forum about ELM obd bluetooth adapter. I use android device, would this be okay or should I look for another device perhaps scangauge?
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My 2005 Prius started showing all the symptoms of a dead/dying hv battery this morning. The dashboard lit up, the battery fan kicked on and my mpg dropped to 35mph. I was half way to work, so I just continued. I have been checking around and I can get it replaced for about $1000.00 reconditioned, but they have a 7-10 day waiting list. The dealership wants $3500.00 minimum, and says that I should not drive it at all and have it towed. Is this true? Can I drive on gas alone until I find a solution?
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gen 3 owner here. Pretty happy with the car and the mpg. One thing I don't fully understand is when I going uphill on the freeway at 65 mph (such as LA's 405 sepulveda pass), the bar gauge is telling me I am in the power region, but the energy flow graph is showing the battery is switching back and forth between charging and discharging. The battery level just stuck at 1 bar below full. Any way to get the battery to work out more during uphill, as I expect I can recover them shortly as I go downhill?
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I've noticed that my car is struggling a lot to climb uphill. I am not seeing any signs yet but I hear the gas engine running hard all the time going 30mph-50mph depending on elevation. Battery level on the monitor is always one or two purples when climbing up but it charges pretty quickly downhill. Should I risk driving the car anymore? My next destination is Yellowstone and Banff National Park so these driving conditions will continue.
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My daughter dropped a dime into the battery exhaust grill (the vents on either side of the back seat).
Do I need to fish it out before the fan kicks in or is there some kind of grill/filter down there?
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2005 Prius transmission starting to slip after hard mountain road climb? Just started to do this. Is there a transmission dip or check capability?
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I just bought 05 prius from a dealer I don't know the history was told all it needed was a hybrid battery.
Now I have a 05 that I drive with known good parts so I pulled my hybrid battery and installed it in the new car the monitor showed engine charging inverter then going to the battery. However the bars on the battery graph start dropping. only code is a engine code 2102.
I also noticed the old A/C condenser in the back.
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I recently drove my 2004 Prius up some steep hills in the Smoky mountains. The next morning while driving to work, my dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree, with multiple idiot lights suddenly on simultaneously (none of them informative).
I turned around and drove to the nearest Toyota service center. They informed me that the timing belt was cracked, the HV computer was bad, and the PCV valve as dirty and needed replacing. I think the hills were too much for the car. I will never take the car into the mountains again.
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I have an 05 Prius that I bought used. It has 59K miles on it. Recently I took it to the dealer for an oil change. They told me it didn't need an oil change, but did need an air filter. Afterwards, the mileage dropped from about 47 around town to about 42. Had the oil changed a week later, and the mileage is now about 40 around town. The dipstick when cold shows a little above the full mark.
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We picked up our 2009 prius about a month ago from a local dealer. At the time it was getting about 52 miles per gallon. Since then, we have driven about 1000 miles and now we are getting only about 41 miles per gallon. Are we doing something wrong that made the MPG drop over 10 miles per gallon.
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I have noticed a significant (15 to 20%) drop-off in mpg in the last 6 months or so. My 2006 prius at 95,000 miles is just short of the warranty on the battery pack. I brought it into the dealership and they ran the routine computer diagnostics and said everything looks good. I fully expected them to tell me that the performance on the battery pack had fallen off, so I was a bit put out. The guy actually got a bit defensive with me when I asked him some further questions about what the criteria are for determining whether the battery back was performing as it is supposed to in order to get the maximum MPGs.
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I used to get 55-58 MPG when my commute was 65 miles one way, 85% freeway. But these days I noticed that when AC runs hard and trips typically 16 miles, 40 MPH, mpg dropped to 42-45. That worried me a little bit.
Driving style: conservative. I start off normally, but I use N gear as soon as passing speed limit. (this factor alone should enhance mpg by 10 I guess. I used this technique on my 98' Lexus LS400, 4 Ltr V8 engine, once got 38 mpg on freeway, while the sticker says 18/25). This is the main reason I worry that something is wrong with my prius.
Typical range: 16 miles, all local.
Tire pressure: 40 psi
AC runs hard, outside temp 90 degrees, I set temp to 72 inside. (I guess this is the main reason for mpg drop, but I don't think it should drop that much)
I recently changed oil and trans oil.
My battery is a little bit weak, but no warning light. If I forget to turn off head lights, it needs jump in 10 minutes.
Mileage is 143K, 2004 model.
Water pump changed by Toyota free of charge.
Any clue? or it sounds normal and I don't need to worry about it?
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Today the flow rate of the air out of the vents on my Prius has noticeably dropped.
It makes no different which vents I select (front, feet, or windscreen).
The blower seems fine - it's still making its normal noise.
The air still blows out nice and cold, there just isn't much of it coming out, even on full blast.
I've pulled the cabin air filter and checked it's not clogged, so it seems like there must be a blockage downstream of the blower.
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I had the cruise control set on the speed limit going up a hill. Half way up, the cruise control dropped as did my speed from 70 to 56. There were no warning lights but the battery meter was in the one bar pink range. I managed to continue up the hill at 56 mph by flooring the accelerator. When I got to the top and started to regenerate power to the battery, I regained power and speed. I am discussing a 2008 Prius with 89k miles. What the issue may be ( like battery pack declining efficiency)?
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I own a 2007. The problem i noticed was that while driving, the AC. was on and suddenly the fan speed dropped and the horns sound also became dim. this was hust like experiencing a loss in power as happens when the voltage drops and the machinery slows down. This persisted for a few minutes to recover back to normal automatically.
This happened a couple of times and then the master warning light and check engine light came on. A couple of weeks back the radiator fan motor dysfunctioned and had to be replaced. I am really concerned as to what is wrong as none of the mechanics have been able to satisfy me with a diagnosis ...
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