2010 Prius Codes: (P3190, P3191, P0A0F, U029A) - Lost power while accelerating

Yup, that's the sound of a Prius engine not starting. It sounds like it ran for 10 seconds, because the cranking in a Prius goes at engine-running speed, instead of the wheezy lower speed of a conventional starter. But the car only waits so many seconds for the engine to make its own power, and then gives up.

P3190 simply says the engine failed to make even a fifth of the power being asked of it, and P3191 means "that, and I was trying to start it at the time". Those codes come straight from the ECM, controlling the engine.

P0A0F comes from the power management control ECU (kind of the orchestra conductor for the car), and it only means "hey, I cued the ECM to start the engine and he said no can do." So it's just telling you the same thing as the P3190/P3191, just at one more layer of hearsay.

C1259 and C1310 come from the brake/skid ECU, and only mean "the power management control ECU told me there's some problem over there." So in this case they're telling you about the P3190/P3191, just with two layers of hearsay.

U029A is the power management control ECU saying it had trouble talking to the battery sensor module inside the traction battery. That's a separate issue. If it wasn't a fluke and it comes back again, it'll have to be dealt with, but it's not the main issue right now. That would be figuring out why the engine won't start: good ol'-fashioned gasoline engine diagnosis.

Inigo Montoya voice: you keep saying 'inverter'. I do not think it is what you mean. (I would bet there are very few people on PriusChat who could listen to recorded Prius sounds and identify ones from the inverter ... and it isn't a thing known for sputtering and violent shaking. Generally, it just kinda sits there.

 

The sort of mantra has always been, three things are needed for the engine, compression, fuel, and spark, and you just need to plan a way to systematically check that you've got all three, and sometimes you'll be lucky with the first thing you check, and other times it'll be more like the last thing. (Ok, maybe it's pretty much always the last thing, unless you were enjoying checking things so much you just keep checking more after finding the problem.)

 

Use your techstream to command the fuel pump on- can you hear it hum? Any chance that you're out of gas? May want to rent a fuel pressure gauge set and repeat that test- see if the pump can build pressure.

Do not attempt to start (ready) the car until you have found your "smoking gun". Too many engine cranking events will completely discharge the HV battery. (hope it's not too late) Most folk do not have any external means to charge that up.

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I think I read somewhere (even in a Toyota doc, IIRC) that it takes roughly 1 percentage point off the traction battery state of charge every time you try to start the engine and fail. I think around 20% state of charge is where it says nope and won't try starting the engine anymore. So if you have a scan tool that can show you the state of charge, you'll have an idea how close you're getting.

 

Chk my past post...mine turn out to be fuel pump

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Because every person with a no-start gets a limited number of tries to diagnose it, it may make more sense just to follow a systematic work-through of what's going on with that particular car than to be swayed too much by what somebody else's no-start turned out to be in some other car.

 

The system you want to select is Hybrid Control, and there it will be under Data List, not Active Tests.

 

Look for the state of charge. It's a percentage. The maximum computed on this cycle was 16.5% and the minimum was 14.0%.

You seem to have proved that I'm wrong about 20% being the limit below which it won't crank the engine anymore. On the other hand, you're probably pretty close to finding out what the actual limiting state of charge is.

 

I can't state an opinion, because I don't think I've experienced dirty-throttle-body no-starts, so I don't have a sense of what dirty-enough looks like. Somebody else might.

 

Were you spraying starter fluid for the whole minute, or did the engine continue to run on its own after the starter fluid got it started? If it ran on its own, what happened at the end of the minute?

What state of charge did the battery get up to?