Dill's Prius Saga

Hi everyone! Dill here! I will be posting my adventures with my 2008 Prius in this thread to keep everything related to my car in one place. You can find my first post and the backstory to the whole car adventure here:

New owner! Making a Dice Roll on a $1000 '08 Prius! | PriusChat

TLDR; Got a 2008 Prius at a government auction for $1125. Was sold as not able to go in gear but when jumping from the battery it would start and drive! I was the only person who eyeballed it during the inspection window so I had more confidence going into the auction process. I felt even with the red triangle on the dash, it was worth the $1125 as it was state-maintained and they keep up with the maintenance really well.

 

This past Friday me and my wife loaded up our F150 in anticipation to drive the 4 hours to the Prius and expect to have to tow it home. On the way to its location, I stopped at a dealer nearby and tried to buy a battery and touch up paint. Fun fact, the prices online for the dealership are different than what you pay at the parts counter! They would not be willing to match their own online pricing on the spot and told me it could take a while to process my order if I placed one immediately so I left. I went ahead and placed an order online for a dealership up the highway closer to the car and picked it up there no problem and saved ~$45 from what I would've paid in-store, bleh.

So the whole way up there I am nervous, my wife didn't go look at it with me the first time and this would be her main vehicle after all. Happy wife, happy life. I knew she approved of the color but was not sure if she would like the Prius in general. My biggest fear was something would go wrong and it would not start or drive and would give a bad first impression. So we get to the car and I get the title and keys. Fortunately there was a DMV across the hall from where I got the title from the county office. I went over and quickly paid my taxes and got a 10 day temp tag. Ready to roll!

I get out to the car and its time to install the new battery. I quickly take out the old battery and proceed to pull all the rubber plugs to drain the water that has leaked in the trunk. It was rusty orange water on the battery compartment side but I think it was from the battery tray or something else, the body of the car looked fine. I could not, however, remove the spare tire. The gray plastic nut was on good! So that had to stay on until I could get home. After draining all the water I install the new battery and put everything back together. I sit in the drivers seat and hit the power button... it starts! At this point I am quite happy. I brought along 3 gallons of gas since the car showed as empty but the car acted like it wouldnt take any more fuel. I was confused about this but it didnt take long before the gauge updated to show a full tank.

My wife is overall quite happy, but doesnt like the smell the stagnant water had left in the car, we will take care of that later. The red triangle was still on but I was surprised to find it would turn off and turn on repeatedly. I thought the red triangle certainly meant it would only turn on once and never again. I insert my OBD tool and get the following codes: P3000 and P0AFA I do a quick search and see a few things but no time to fix that, time to get home! So we start the long 4 hour drive home. According to the screen I was averaging 41 MPG by the time I made it to my house. The car drove wonderfully, but certainly not like it was supposed to. The ICE stayed on constantly, I had read it doesnt always stay on, also the battery on the screen would never fully charge and really by the time I got home it was green but 1 bar was missing. It took forever to get to that point but never discharged during the trip. It was about 3 bars when I first started the car. I am also totally unsure of what the Prius is supposed to sound like normally so I hear things and wonder if they are normal. Like I hear the engine quietly. Sometimes when I brake I hear the actuator for a few seconds but not always. When I turn off the car I hear the coolant pump for a moment. I managed to find explanations to make me feel better about all the noises. The only one I couldnt explain was a mechanical kind of whirl noise similar to a mechanical motor or something. It changed in pitch as I would go faster and was not dependent on the engine or turning. Not a wheel bearing I am sure. Maybe it is norma but I just have no clue without any real reference!

The car drove wonderfully really the entire way home. I could tell it was so well maintained. The tires were in great shape, no noises when going over bumps, drove in a straight line and handled magnificently. On top of that, the interior was in surprisingly good shape and it looked like just a little bit of elbow grease was in order to get it nice and clean. I think my wifes biggest issue was all the chips on the hood! I think someone followed behind a dump truck and got a ton of rocks thrown on them, not sure! Hopefully the touch up paint does enough magic to make it good enough. We will be doing the initial wash and such tomorrow, making sure the exterior and interior look good and seeing how much better it looks with a bath. We will probably do a compound and polish too in the coming weeks but right now I want to focus on fixing the red triangle issue.

So, lets chat about that a moment... The red triangle codes look to be dealing with either the ECU or the battery itself. My thoughts are to pop the cover off and visually inspect the battery first. Read voltages, check the ECU internally and the plug for any corrosion or heat damage and then look at the BUS bar. I am concerned the issue with the battery could have come from the amount of water in the trunk, really who knows how long or how much water had got in there over time. It was a lot when I got to it. One thing is for certain, I am not opposed to buying a new battery. Looking at NewPriusBatteries (I think thats what it was called) I see I can get a battery from them for $1600. But my local dealership will sell me an OEM one online for $1699 (plus a core charge, but I would return the old battery). I dont really know what would be the best step forward on that choice if it comes to it. Any suggestions or thoughts on that topic or any of the others I have described in my post?

Here are some photos from pick up day!

 

Thanks all! I appreciate the feedback and responses so far. When I changed the 12v battery I couldn't find a date on it? I wonder if the 12v that was in it was the original. Would be crazy for a 12V to last so long but it was an OEM battery.

@M in KC the codes were P3000 and P0AFA. I did not notice a P0A80 code (yet). I am computer saavy so I will get an old computer loaded with Windows 7 and get techstream and the OBD reader. Do I have to use a specific type of USB OBD tool? I use a OBDLink EX OBD Adapter for my Ford vehicles when I use the Forscan program which is similar to techstream but is a third party software designed specifically for Ford vehicles. It was supposed to be real fancy but no clue if Techstream only wants a specific type of USB OBD tool.

I am not opposed to just getting a new battery. I might go with the one from newpriusbatteries even though the cost seems in-line with the OEM one, I would not have to worry about the Core thing.

 

Thanks, @edthefox5 and @PriusCamper I will have to check the battery. I also apologize if my posts are popping up oddly, I am still new so they have to be approved first. My plan was to pop open the battery first to check the ECU first. I was thinking I may as well check it and the wiring for any obvious problems before I ordered a new battery since there was a chance I would order a new battery and have this ECU problem anyway. I also have no way to know if this battery has been replaced before even though the description said: "battery has never been replaced". The person that listed it was not able to give me any service history so I doubt they know what services have actually been performed. I'll try to get pictures of what Dr. Prius says as well. I went ahead and ordered the Mini VCI, looked like it uses a special chip that techstream needs.

A local seller is selling a Maxx Volt lightly used for $200 but it looks like it is only a charger and not a discharger. I have read a bit about reconditioning but it seems from most posts to be only delaying the inevitable if the battery actually is going bad.



Gave it a good wash today



Did a ton of touch up painting on that hood. I can still see all the spots obviously but at least they arent white!

 

@PriusCamper I appreciate your input. I went ahead and took apart the interior quite extensively to get to the battery ECU. Uh oh, looks crispy... Taking apart the connectors and the ECU it looks like this:








Pin 22 is GONE. The surrounding pins are also in quite bad shape. The actual board itself looks fine. It is a real shame there are no after market 22 pin connectors that I could just solder in. I have a very nice soldering station and would not be afraid to do it. I checked and see nothing though. I guess I will order a new battery ECU and Wire frame first then put everything together and see if our angry triangle problem is solved. While I have the cover off the battery, is there anything else I need to check? I almost feel like I should install what is needed to do a rebalancing. Seems a useful investment even if I did ultimately need a battery.

On the bright side! I got an email from the state sending me ALL service records for the vehicle in a nice PDF format. I do see in 11/15/2019 they took it to a Chevy dealer (lol) for service where they replaced the front pads and rotors. The notes in the invoice says "Idles rough CEL has came on but not on now. Never had plugs and wires" also says "not shifting correctly" IDK what any of that means but I do notice it might idle a little odd. I assumed it was like that because the engine really shouldnt be idling other than to charge the battery which I guess isnt done quite right when you have the ECU issue like I have now. I also think fixing the battery thing might help with "shifting" but I may do a transaxle fluid drain and fill since I dont see it listed. I did notice on the highway if I tried to press the gas pedal it would seem to go to neutral before going back in gear. In reality it looked like from the display that in that moment it tried to get the battery to power the car for a split moment before switching back to the ICE which is why it feels like it goes out of gear. Again, I imagine my battery issue might fix this? They also said to check wheel bearings then note "all wheel bearings seem fine at this time".

Another few things I see is this mystery word. Short Out pipe?

They had fixed the heat shield at the rotors, a whole bunch of tire changes (the state seemed to do a tire change yearly) and a recall fix for the gas pedal (2010), steering shaft/hybrid water pump (2013) and at one point a new combination meter and keys in 2014. There are also so many oil changes on record that it seems they just did it anytime they felt like, which is probably good. Receipts show synthetic has always been used.

Oh! Before I forget. I noticed this somewhat corroded wire near the fan. Looks to lead to the passenger tail light or somewhere in the bumper?





So here I am, guess I should order the ECU and Wire Frame now? Anything else I need to go ahead and order while I have this thing apart? What about the nuts that go on the battery posts or any kind of protection from oxidation and corrosion?

 

Whew! I am back! Is that connector the fan connector? None of the wires seem to lead to the fan. Not sure though. As I mentioned in the first post, I did drain the water that had accumulated. I will have to fix this so it will be nice and dry!

As for mice, I did not see anything. The cabin and air filter looks almost new. They did keep up with the maintenance and it was detailed last year so maybe they cleaned anything I might would find? It seems okay. I had a car with mice once. Was a disaster!

So I pulled the battery out today. It was heavy but I brought it inside my house. My wife is not too happy, especially when I told her it might be sitting here for a while depending on how I go about charging and discharging it a few times. Someone locally is selling a B6AC charger but I see that would only do one module at a time with an estimate of about a month to do it all haha, my wife would kill me.

So here is what it looks like!




.
I did see some liquid but not much. I assume its normal?


Anyway, as you can see... super corroded. I remember in Dr. Prius every block was green and the same level except for block 1, it was all the way in the red as low in the red as the others were high in the green. Looking at the sense wires, it seems block 1 (furthest from ECU?) is the wire that leads to the burnt connector. So maybe the pack is "fine" after all. I have a multimeter but I am notoriously famous for misplacing things so I am going to buy another and check the current voltages on each cell and update later. I ordered the Wire Frame and ECU. I guess I will just find a way to clean up the copper bus bars for the other side and all the nuts.

I really like the idea of being able to grid charge the whole pack. I dont mind taking it all apart but man it seems like a pain if I had to do it regularly. I also dont mind spending money but $500 on the prolong seems nuts if I can just drop $1600 and get the NPB and just be good for a while and not worry.

Lastly, the mini VCI and techstream stuff came today but... Obviously the prius battery is removed. So I guess that does me no good right now haha.

 

Yeah, my thought at this point is mostly just to replace the ECU, which would have had to be done anyway. The bus bar wouldve probably been changed with a new battery so really this as of now is only a $55 journey down a path that might not even yield a positive result. Getting a multimeter and a cheap battery charger would only add another $20 but those are tools I could always use in the future for other things. To go all out, as I mentioned in my last post, just doesnt seem to make much sense unless I was only trying to get the car to last me another year or so or was getting it good enough to flip.

Those droplets were only on a very few and it was just that tiny bit I saw. I did notice the top of the battery cage had some corrosion on it on the side of the sense bars at the corner furthest from the ECU.



For now I put the copper pieces in a salt and vinegar bath, I cant believe theyre looking better already. I wonder what overnight would do.

Thanks again for all the replies so far!

 

Read the voltages on the battery. Heres what I got (working towards the BCU). I was surprised all the voltages were near 8v per module. I usually see them in the 7's on other posts people make here. Maybe its the crappy Harbor Freight multimeter? The first few modules which read lower I believe are the ones on the end of the connector that was burned.

1. 7.93
2. 7.94
3. 7.94
4. 7.93
5. 8.0
6. 8.01
7. 8.0
8. 8.03
9. 8.0
10. 8.01
11. 8.01
12. 8.02
13. 8.01
14. 8.0
15. 8.0
16. 8.01
17. 8.0
18. 8.01
19. 8.01
20. 8.01
21. 8.0
22. 8.02
23. 8.0
24. 8.02
25. 8.0
26. 8.0
27. 7.99
28. 7.99

 

Went and bought the Maxx Volt. Got it for $150 from a guy about 2 hours away who used it a handful of times. I went ahead and put the battery connections all back together and the battery is "hot" on the table in my living room charging while a box fan blows on it. It was 221V when first connected. The Maxx Volt says it will charge until it is 240-245ish. I guess by that point it should be fairly balanced and we will be good to pull the safety plug, haul it outside to the car and see what she does.

I gave up on using the hobby charger on each module, it really was taking a long time and I was not able to source a good DIY discharge setup so I was using alligator clips connected to a old headlight bulb until it turned off at a little over 6v. I could maybe build a discharger for the battery to use alongside the Maxx Volt I got. Their discharger is like $300 so a DIY solution may be in order. I have seen them here but cant recall where. It would be real nice to be able to use the Maxx Volt plug to do it all so it stays neat. Its a 9 pin twist connector. No way its proprietary.

If we can get it good enough to drive with no light to pass the state inspection, that will buy me some time to drive around the car a lot and evaluate that there are no other issues before we decide to keep it and get the NPD. I am assuming nothing prevents you from halfway reinstalling it in the car, meaning bolting the battery and cover down but leaving the interior out?

EDIT: Found the Maxx Volt connector. Its apparently a CPC (Circular Plastic Connector), 9 pins or something usually made by Tyco amongst others. I see the word AMP thrown around with it too. Found them on ebay so might order a connector and look at fabricating a DIY discharger using it. Heck, you could make your own cable to permanently mount in your car easily and people could just pass around the same Maxx Volt in the area. Would just need the connector, the right kind of wire, an inline fuse and some eye-type connectors to go on the battery terminals.