My Prius is not well :( Check Hybrid System Msg

You milage is not much harder on the car than others. Maybe harder on the doors, brakes, stuff like that. I highly doubt the inverter was made cheaper and with less quality than the genII. You might just be the first one with bad luck. I know the inverter is lighter and smaller now but thats how things work.

 

Hi GC,

Its not usual for an inverter to go at 45 K miles.

First thing to check for is nicks in the high voltage wiring. If there is a place where current can leak, the car wont like it. It has a built in ground fault interupter system. Since this happened overnight, not during a run, and the time of year, I am guessing rodent damage. You should have them pull the battery covers, and see if anything made it in there. Check the battery system vent screen in the rear wheel well to see if its intact. Also, check all the wiring from the battery to the inverter.

Its unlikely the taxi service had anything to do with this. Unless you had to drag the bottom of the car up a hill on a highly crowned and rutted dirt road to deliver a passenger. I mean, these cars easily survive Az mountain driving. Is it 100 F there, and mountainous?


Can you get a list of codes for Patrick to look at ?

 

Hi GC,

You misunderstand. I did NOT use a double negative. I said its NOT USUAL (not Not Unusual)....

 

Could it be the inverter coolant pump? Hal

 

Sorry to hear it Grumpy!

Hopefully it's something as simple as a weak 12V battery.

 

Sorry to hear this. The inverter is made of semiconductors - they don't "break". And if they run under spec, they will not deteriorate over time. Either they break immediately or will simply work.

Hence, *if* there is a problem, it will have to do IMHO with something else, related to the inverter but not with the inverter electronics themselves. As proposed - coolant not reaching properly the inverter and hence having the semi parts work out of spec (and in no particular driving conditions) at higher temp (ie. >150C), or problems with the wiring introducing short-circuit current/drains. Or it might be also a software problem. The whole thing is managed via software - when you accelerate the inverter needs to be controlled electronically to regulate the frequency of the 3-phase waveforms to make the synchronous electric engine to start to revolve.

I think time will tell - either it breaks completely down or it doesn't - or at least it will not happen where the dealer think it will. I am also not too sure that dealers know much about what happens in a Prius - honestly speaking...

If it breaks down, I also hope there is a part available in UK and that they don't have to order it from Japan - that will take some time to get to UK... but since you are under warranty, a replacement car is a must in any case.

Good luck! and keep us informed!

PS: I don't think they cut corners at Toyota on this part - it's too fundamental to screw it up. And it has likely been thoroughly tested before commercialisation. Moreover, the semiconductor parts inside it, are highly controllable parts during design and production - and generically speaking more reliable than any moving mechanical part. Either it breaks down immediately or it doesn't (all operating conditions maintained, that is).
Moreover the IGBTs components used are from Japanese manufacturers (I think they are from from Toshiba, but there are also Hitachi and Mitsubishi producing it): they all have excellent quality and likely are the same manufacturers as the Gen 2 IGBTs - so they have years of experience. If really the IGBTs go bust, it will be an important case to look into at one of these companies, Toyota included, obviously...

 

Hopefully they will have the parts to fix it.

 

I'm no expert in power semiconductors, but for the non-power type, that's certainly not true. As one example, there's electromigration - electrons move through the wires in semiconductors so fast that they knock the copper atoms around a bit. Over time, they can move enough atoms to completely break a wire, causing failure. There's lots of other ways for semiconductors to fail, too. It's just not obvious why they fail when they do, unless you have extraordinarily specialized test equipment.

That said, they are typically more reliable than non-semiconductor devices in most areas, as long as the components are appropriately sized (and preferably derated a bit to give longer life - eg using a 24V capacitor in a 12V system).

 

I think pakitt meant more along the lines of it either works or doesn't. Grumpy would not find his inverter to not work on friday, and start working on saturday. it simply works, or doesn't.

 

Yes but a couple restarts wont rematerialze the bonds lost to electromigration. If it fails, then works again, I would think the cause is elsewhere. And migration on modern parts under normal loads is so small, that I would expect the OP to die before the semiconductor does.

 

What I meant, and 2k1Toaster further explained - is that if a semiconductor power part is designed to last under specific specs (i.e. within specific temperature ranges, humidity parameters, load currents and voltages) for, say, 10 years with 2 on/off (car turning on and off) each day, it will work. The quality on automotive semiconductors is extreme, especially from the Japanese manufactures. (I work in the field)

The field failure rate on high quality semi power devices is in the order of <0.5 dpm (devices per million) if not less. So the chances that within 2-3 years of ownership, a IGBT will break down, if working under spec, is practically zero. It is actually more probable to win at the lottery.

This is why I say, either it works immediately (within few weeks of use) and "forever" or it breaks down (the part is faulty and for some odd reason it has fallen through the cracks of quality control).

Therefore I assume that if the inverter is going weird, is not because of the IGBT per se and its build quality, but rather due to the IGBT out-of-spec working conditions (due to a failure/problem elsewhere in the system) or some other component suffering from the same out-of-spec conditions, or a non-semi component failing.

Moreover, yes - the probability of a faulty IGBT, after 2-3 years of use, is not exactly zero, but close to it: but the inverter is also a very expensive component and Toyota does not what to waste its money replacing them within the 5 year warranty - these parts have to be perfect and they represent the HSD technology, flagship of the whole company - they simply *cannot* fail otherwise Denso management and its suppliers (Toshiba?) will have a good time...

If Toyota started to cut corners in such a way that IGBTs or more generically the inverter breaks within the 5 year warranty, they are simply stupid - cutting where they shouldn't. If instead the IGBTs break due to some other malfunction, then the new HSD on the Gen3 might have a design fault that can bring the inverter to work out-of-spec and markedly reduce the lifetime of its components (semi or not). Considering that this is the first time I hear this happen on the Gen3, chances are that this is truly a case of bad luck, or there is some other issue that has nothing to do with the IGBTs, and even the inverter itself. Otherwise, expect a recall...

 

i hate the thought of a problem when i'm by myself. it must be nerve racking when you're driving people around!

 

At least if it does fail after the 15k mark the dealers are aware that the fault already existed (if there is one!)

I've seen the "Check.." message a couple of times. Once, i had not refitted the orange service plug correctly, the others, when i have removed a fuse from the fusebox.

 

Next time, get a print out of the codes that were thrown so we can see what the issue may be.

There are lots of things related to the inverter that may not be the inverter itself. If could just be a bad reading on one of the sensors, which cascaded down the logic/software which resulted in a state which was not self-correcting, resulting in low mpg. Then that would perhaps require a full reboot of the system, as the dealer did. It has a lot of inputs to decide the output, such as temperature, SOC, voltage, rotor position & speed, etc.

 

I dont know about the UK, but here in the US the inverter, which is part of the hybrid part of the car, is covered for 8yr/100000 miles.