Can a low 12V battery cause ABS codes? How about revving the engine in Park?

Discussion in 'Generation 1 Prius Discussion' started by KarenA, Oct 11, 2018.

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  1. KarenA

    KarenA Junior Member

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    Thanks Bisco, I'm not ruling that out, but when I moved from the West to the East Coast, I left my jack stands behind. So for practical reasons too, I'm looking for what the 12 codes about all 4 wheels have in common first.
     
    #21 KarenA, Oct 29, 2018
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  2. KarenA

    KarenA Junior Member

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    I went to the Toyota Dealer today. I can report that the ABS codes stayed disappeared this morning and didn't show up on the dealer's diagnostic. The exclamation points disappeared this morning. The car drove great. However, I can't surmise that the ABS codes were just a temporary consequence of the low 12v battery because...

    ...the dealer diagnostic found P3009 (along with P3000). He didn't find any ABS codes. BTW, the Main Battery warning light has never come on.

    Before I face the dliemma of what to do about the car, what etiquette should I follow about posting? -- start a new thread for a different issue or continue on this one?
     
    #22 KarenA, Oct 30, 2018
  3. Leadfoot J. McCoalroller

    Leadfoot J. McCoalroller Senior Member

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    I don't know what specifically triggers the battery warning in a prius. The charging system is fundamentally different from any conventional auto electric system, so we really can't borrow any experience from other cars. Meaning: we can't really infer that it is a reliable or useful warning system.

    I still think a borrowed healthy 12v battery, jumper-cabled to the native battery for a day or so would be a useful diagnostic.

    It's easy to imagine the car having all kinds of ghost faults from a failing 12v battery. Heck, my old Subaru went bananas when the voltage dropped enough after alternator failure. It really put on a show with gauges wildly pegging and zeroing, warning lights coming and going, codes set and erased etc... and that didn't even have any hybrid components in the mix.

    If you can borrow one for a day to test, and the car behaves normally and doesn't throw weird codes then it's worth the money to make it permanent.
     
    #23 Leadfoot J. McCoalroller, Oct 30, 2018
  4. KarenA

    KarenA Junior Member

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    Yes, but I broke down and got a new 12v battery. It's interesting to see in these P3009 threads that others have done that recently too.

    I can see four possible options for why I may have a real problem:
    1) The car is 15 years old with 150,000 miles on it
    2) I hardly drove the car for 2+ months while figuring out the water pump/12v battery/ABS issues
    3) It's been extremely humid these past few months from all the rain (--> corrosion)
    4) I (stupidly?) did a charging system test with a broken inverter water pump and a low-voltage auxiliary battery, maybe frying something.

    What's frustrating is that paying for a diagnostic at the dealer only got me a code printout. It didn't get me any info about the source of the problem. I'm thinking about going back tomorrow and asking them to do those simple tests to tell me whether the issue is with the battery assembly, the transmission, or something between them.
     
    #24 KarenA, Oct 30, 2018
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