My wife was driving our 2003 Prius on the freeway when it suddenly lost all driving power and had to be towed home. The power will go on in the car but it will not start. The fuel indicator flashes empty for a few seconds then flashes full. The tank was filled all the way up a few minutes before shutting down on the freeway. The tow truck driver thought it may be the aux battery so I checked it and there is corrosion visible on the terminal. Is it possibly just the aux battery or something more? We just bought the car 2 weeks ago and are praying its minor. Any advice is appreciated before I take it somewhere on Monday.
Did the tow truck driver attempt to jumpstart the car, and if so what happened? If the car can be jumpstarted successfully then the 12V auxiliary battery is likely the only problem. You might charge the 12V battery now, clean the battery terminals and ensure the connections are tight (including the negative cable connection where it bolts to the body.) If that doesn't work then you probably need a new 12V battery. If you have access to a decent digital multimeter you can measure battery voltage to confirm whether the battery is good or bad.
Fremont...if you get stumped, take it to Art's Automotive in Berkeley. DO NOT GO TO A DEALER. A problem with the 12V should not cause a problem mid-drive. In addition to voltage, measure the resistance from the negative lead post to chassis ground, look for less than 1 ohm. While you are back there, just disconnect the negative for 5 minutes to reset everything. Does the engine turn over at all?
Nope. I filled it up. Talking to her more, the check engine light went on as did the battery light on the dash when the car lost power. They don't appear anymore. The only thing that happens when I try to start the car now is the fuel indicator blinks at 1 bar for a few seconds and then all the bars start flashing.
Scenario sounds like a Gen II inverter coolant pump failure. Is there similarity between the Gen I and Gen II on this?
That suggests a problem with the fuel level sending unit. There have been other reports of this, but usually the car is still driveable. Have you disconnected the 12V for five minutes to see if anything of this will reset?
Asked her about the coolant and she said the light went on for a second as she was backing out of the driveway the other day. She wrote it off to the angle of the driveway. I didn't know this until now. Fantastic
Well, we have to be careful here. The inverter cooling system is separate from the engine cooling system. Here it is for the '03: Here's some info on the Gen I from the good and very smart folks at Lucious Garage: (FWIW: 475 9th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103, 415.875.9030) Luscious Garage | Gen 1 Prius code P3130: Inverter System Cooling Malfunction At least on the Gen II, the inverter coolant pump runs whenever the car is in READY. You can tell if it's running by removing the fill cap on the reservoir and looking for turbulence, some waviness in the surface of the coolant. If none, the pump is bad.
If the inverter coolant pump was the only issue, then the car should start without any problem after the inverter has cooled down.
Patrick, A well reasoned point... as always. Is there a way that the 12V battery alone could shut everything down while the car is running, say a gross internal short?
I would say that if the 12V battery had two cells or more short, that could present sufficient load on the DC/DC converter to blow the 100A fusible link and the car would then shut down.
I am having a very similar issue. I read through this, looks like inverter and engine cooling systems are both very low on coolant. I plan on filling them and determining if I have any leaks. Does anyone know what fuse I would have to replace to get the engine to start again?
