“Check Hybrid System” error

bill murray would be proud...

 

looks like you bought the car with an undisclosed underlying hv battery issue. Replaced the cells and the issue still there. After failed start ups, looks like the hv battery SOC is too low to even start ICE. Surprised # of hv bars on the dash wasn’t mentioned. Replace the hv battery pack or charge the pack back up and gear up for wack o mole level 2.

 

... and by reading the trouble codes we could even find out whether that has anything to do with the OP's car ... or could just keep pulling ideas out of the air.

 

when you removed the orange safety plug from the HV battery, did you reinstall it with all three steps to ensure the safety interlock contatcts were seated? If not, the battery display normally drops to one or zero bars.
It will also prevent the car from going to ready mode, even with a good 12v battery.

 

Well a viable plan B, mostly to confirm your screwed? Have a friend with an older simple car, with a know good battery and in true MacGyver, style take his battery out of his car. Put it in your trunk, disconnect your battery and connect the two with jumper cables.

Granted it's a bit of effort but, you would know for sure it's not the 12 volt battery. And I think, although I don't know if you boot up the computers you could then read code?

 

The computers boot from the 12 volt battery, and do their checks, and it is at their discretion whether to proceed to bring the traction battery online and make the car READY.

When you give them 13.2 to 13.8 volts and they boot up and decide not to make the car READY, if you ask them why they have decided not to, in most cases they will tell you.

Could it be because of not sliding the traction battery plug? There's a code for that. They'll tell you. Could it be because of the traction battery condition? Maybe. They'll tell you. Some other reason entirely? They'll tell you.

 

Oh good one! I have heard of folks screwing up reseating the safety plug properly!

 

If the READY does not show, the car's computers have decided not to show the READY. They have a reason for that, and they will tell you the reason if asked. Or you could consider the number of possible codes and play the odds guessing.

 

if the 12 volt is low,

the ready will not show

 

In post one and four you said you had an obd2 scanner. In post three you said you read the battery fail code with Techstream. What scanner are you using now? Do you have an obd2 bluetooth device? It would be useful to read the hv battery data and report it to determine if you are spinning your wheels with your current focus.

 

Disconnect the 12V battery completely both terminals for 2 plus hours.
This should fix the problem most of the time.

 

Once the 12 volt battery is well charged and reconnected, if the car will power ON but still not show READY, do consider asking the car's computers why not. The difference between asking us and asking them is that they know and we don't.

 

The hybrid battery is not the Master of its Domain. The car's computers are the guys in charge and they run on the 12v battery exclusively when you try to go to Ready.

If the OBD2 scanner is not working, its likely the 12v is too low (12.0 vdc is enough), the scanner itself is faulty or the car's computers are not getting the 12v power from the battery. The last item is often caused by blown fusible links and fuses, quickly caused by a one second reversed polarity jump.

So, check the 12v at the car's front fuse box jump point. Then try another scanner just to be sure the port works. Finally check the fusible links and fuses.

By the way, the hybrid battery has a big relay (contactor) that only allows hv power after a series of computer operations provide the magic Ready. Even then the hv battery is only taking orders from the computer overlords. It is never in charge.

 

Also, even if the car's computers are not making the car READY, that doesn't have to mean they're not getting the right 12 volt power or that they're not doing their job.

Their job is to run their checklist and decide whether to make the car READY. If they do that and their decision is "nope!", well, that's their job. Ask them why.

 

Where's the fun in that? Everyone would much rather use a Ouija board or play darts blindfolded than actually test things. (somewhere someone once fixed a problem by doing "x", so you should first do "x" as well, because you might have "the exact same problem"!!)

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I am not sure the Op is resisting codes in favor of guesses. Since this is primarily a diy site (almost always suggesting the member hook up, diagnose and then tear into it), combined with a scanner that no longer works, it seems prudent to move in a direction that gets a scanner functional.

In a diy capacity or at a shop.

 

Very similar situation here. Just put new motor in the car. 2010 Prius. Everything powers up. Radio, lights, wipers, flashers, A/C, dash, etc… will not go to ready mode. I’ve checked and changed fuses, new 12v battery, it will not start.