Hello, I have a 2007 Pruis, 162,000 Miles. I have the Red Triangle, (!), CK ENG Light and VSC lights. Sometimes they are on and sometimes they go away. Sometimes it is just the Red Triangle and CK ENG Light. MPG is staying at 43.8. When driving the HY Battery goes all the way green and down to blue. It says more in the all green more often which I have not seen happen before (100% Full). Car seems to drive fine. Sometimes when starting the car the HY Battery will go down to purple but quickly recharge to full. I have checked the 12V battery and unloaded it is either at is at 11.8-12V. When driving it is between 13.8-13.9 sometimes it hits 14. The ELE Motor still kicks in and sometimes is only driving in that mode. When parked it appears to be in ELE mode without problems. My question. Is the main HY Battery going bad or is it the 12V Battery or something else? appreciate any one that can offer help on this.
Probably you have not been driving enough you car and the hybrid battery is getting low but still good hopefully, try disconnecting the negative of the 12 volts battery for one minute to clear the code and go for a long drive to recharge the batteries, when you don’t drive you Prius enough (long periods of time) you hybrid battery will get weak and you will see false green bars that will deplete quickly, the older the hybrid battery the less capacity the hybrid battery have the less time will take for the battery get low and trigger codes.
30 minutes sounds good if not enough just go for another 30 minutes next day and keep this on mind a Prius with a weak but still functional hybrid battery pack can’t take vacations, drive it everyday and you be fine, will be good idea to get the error code if you still having issues after.
Get the codes read. The car is reporting exactly what its unhappy about you can speculate all you want but all the info is there waiting to be harvested. Whatever it is its reporting a major fault with the red triangle of death RTOD. Its usually either the hybrid battery or the inverter coolant pump has failed. Make the car ready then open the hood and take the cap off the inverter coolant reservoir and with a flashlight look in there and see if the coolant is moving meaning the pump is working. No movement pump dead and inverter & trans are not being cooled and are overheating hence the RTOD. But I can say with great certainty its either the hybrid battery now or soon will be. You want a code reader with Hybrid capability most off the shelf code readers are just plain auto. You want a code reader with techstream software. Techstream TS is a Chinese knockoff software of the same service software a toyota dealer uses. Its installed on a laptop and you buy the little obd to usb dongle. It has complete hybrid battery diagnostics code readers. use the search forums tab up top and search techstream and then another choice is mini vci you will see many discussions of what types of TS capable code readers are out there. If you own a G2 your going to need one.
The hybrid battery fan runs now. I went to check the codes and it came back with nothing. tested 12v and it said 100% charge but also said bad battery. I noticed the coolant was slightly below the LOW mark so I added some. sounds like I might have to go to the dealer.
This is good news the 12 volts battery is cheap so that may be the problem get it replace and hope for the best.
No...once the hybrid fan is running the hybrid battery is overheating and unhappy. It will then throw the red triangle of death the RTOD and also if you look at the screen above the radio the MFD it will show a car icon in the upper left corner that means the hybrid battery is kaput. We call that a turtle. Your not pulling any codes with your obd device because it is not hybrid car capable of pulling codes as its a regular old ice code puller. Theres 2 kinds of people who own a G2 prius::: Those with bad battery's and those who are going to get bad battery's. Use the search forums tab up top and search: hybrid battery then techstream. Techstream will discuss many different obds you can get for your G2.
What about the kind of people that already replaced the battery of the G2 they don’t exist, anyway the obvious fear of buying hybrid cars is that they going to get bad battery, this will apply to a brand new car too not to G2 only, just give the time and the brand new today will be the one old in the future.
It looks like those that have commented have older Prius. Is it worth my money to replace the hybrid battery or buy a new car.
IMHO only if you bought the car new have owned it for years and years its been a good car and you have maintained the oil and the trans fluid and the engine coolant and the inverter coolant. And the choices on hybrid batterys are varied. There's the Craigs List whack a mole with free brake light warranty for $300--500 that will last about 3 months, theirs the aftermarket battery replacement like Dorman not sure what those go for now using original old cells reports on longevity vary everyone has a horror story, there's the buy a new set of brand new after market battery's you install them yourself that's about $1700, or buy a brand new battery at the dealer and have them install it that's about $5000. And then after all that you may lose the brake accumulator another big repair lots of G2's suffer from. That's expensive too. Its an old platform.
Ed lives in FL where there is a large number of older wealthy victims so the Toyota franchise holder for the SW US doesn't feel the need to be competitive. I doubt Ed could find that price anywhere in FL. Having said that I'm sure he could do better than $5000.
I see, but you can always pay shipping to get from somewhere else, I will worry to buy local only is I get a used battery or refurbished.