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2007 Prius - Won't start. All lights come up on dash except the red !. Won't turn over.

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by musiclover7, Feb 18, 2024.

  1. musiclover7

    musiclover7 Junior Member

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    Hey all,

    Some history here. This is our 2007 prius with close to 270k miles. Our silver bullet made it home the other night, but has not turned on since. This is what it looks like when I try to start it.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Comes up to that state and clicking the power button again powers it down. I tried hooking it up to a set of jumper cables and get the same thing.

    Some history... The battery had been dying on and off for past few months and I have a quick start battery and cables that I carry around with me where-ever I go. My prior theory was that if we left the light switch on (which my wife had done a number of times I guess out of habit), even though the lights were not on, it would somehow drain the battery. I would jump it and then she would be fine until the next incident. These current symptoms seem a little different as the car will simply not turn over. Seems like it wants to start, but the engine never kicks in. Right now she is stuck in my driveway and I'm trying to make up my mind on next steps. Hoping for some advice.

    We are well aware that this car is on her last legs. We were really hoping to get another 3-4 months out of her so we can finish tucking away the money needed for another car. I don't want to invest big money in repairing this vehicle, but if I could make a $3-400 repair investment that would buy us another 4-6 months I would.

    Any advice much appreciated!!
     

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  2. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Last leg 260,000 you said 290 last leg. Man you must not be feeling well or something That's just broke in very well that should be very personal The seat should fit you right and all that stuff You got to be kidding last leg all the mine here have close to that on them and they're going to go to 500,000 plus so I got a lot of driving to do now It looks like here you can't even ready the car the green word ready no see it nowhere see a bunch of lights You got to step on the brake to get the ready I'm sure you know this. So it's time to read codes now I guess the check engine light's been on for a while maybe because you have the PO420 code possibly?? I don't know I can't see from here but that would be your first step even a cheap Innova brand code reader will get you the serious stuff pretty quickly including serious ABS stuff just the codes that will be good to have to sort out what you have going on. A bad 12 volt or a questionable 12 volt is automatic grounds for problems so you want to get that sorted out directly regardless of any instant charging capability you may be carrying around in your pocket forget about all that The car needs 12 solid volts for all the computers and everything to communicate well not just for you to jump it off and hope for the best. So reading the codes would be good and then if you can read the codes and we can figure out to get your car to ready we can find out if you're actually charging your old dead battery or not the 12 volt that is You need a voltmeter to check that.
     
  3. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Prius don't just turn over there's no starter You got to get to ready first and then if you have to back out of your parking space you put it in r let your foot off the brake only have electric motors backing up but if when you start to back up and the electric motors are whirring backing you up. If the battery needs it the engine is going to start up come on because it needs to power the inverter to charge the battery and now your engines running anytime you're Prius is moving generally speaking Pistons are going up and down The reciprocating mass is turning The coils and the ignition is maybe not be running hence your engine isn't firing that's okay the car knows when.
     
  4. Chris Sanchez

    Chris Sanchez New Member

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    Have you check the ground wire where it attaches to the frame. Over time…. They come loose.
     
    #4 Chris Sanchez, Feb 18, 2024
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 19, 2024
  5. musiclover7

    musiclover7 Junior Member

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    I am working on getting a hold of a code reader and will report back once I've got those details. Agree that is the next step and hard for anyone to comment without knowing what's in scope here.
     
  6. musiclover7

    musiclover7 Junior Member

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    There are other reasons I feel like this car is on it's last legs. It burns oil pretty badly. I wind up adding a half quart every week, sometimes a little more. It does not run like it used to. Last year, the electric battery died according to the display. I was able to drive it for a few weeks on the gas engine only, and miraculously, after a few weeks, the electric engine started working again and has worked every since.

    I don't think the electric battery is in play here, but it could be. I have a lot to learn still about this car. I change my own oil and top of my own fluids, but I'm no mechanic. Just trying to determine if the repair is going to be so expensive that it would cost more than the car is worth.

    I ordered a code reader and it should be coming sometime in the next couple days. None of my friends here have one and I can't get this car to the local auto supply store to get the code read in the mean time.
     
  7. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Well there you go so you'll have a code reader directly you'll be able to see batteries going out and then coming back to life and working the rest of the time for another year That's suspect a lot of weirdness so there's always that burning oil is never good people have tried soaking the pistons via pouring chemical down the spark plug holes on a Saturday and a Sunday they have seen mixed results a good cleaning can work but a generation twos engine is fairly clean running although detune the 1NZ is not a dirty engine as engines go so it's not running on its own puke like a generation 3 not anything near like that so you may be able to stave off some of the oil burning by soaking the Pistons via the plug holes there's instructions here how to do it various and sundry chemicals You just basically trying to clean out the oil control ring return portion the screen whatever it is and so on my '09 burns oil but if I keep the oil clean it doesn't seem to burn nearly as much so as the oil is coming up on now five $6,000 mi and that car I change it where other ones it's 10 but this car also has near 400,000 mi on it and the oil burning you can't see it or anything you can't even smell it behind the car so it's doing a pretty good job of burning it but other than that you know if you haven't dealt with the brake problem and things like that it sounds like this car may not be worthy of all those fixes You can find other ones out there in the wild for literally a couple hundred dollars if you look where people have just given up you know folks have done every little thing and have the thing right and then the battery goes out like for the second time on a refurb they bought for whatever. And you come along and scoop up the car for $500 drop a battery in it and drive it for 10 years or possibly more I've done this like three times with these models.
     
  8. musiclover7

    musiclover7 Junior Member

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    Ok.. so following one of your suggestions, I pressed down hard on the brakes and tried the ignition this afternoon. Sure enough, the dang thing started up all the way.

    What does that tell me? Is the brake switch getting flaky?

    The silver bullet lives to see another day!!
     
  9. musiclover7

    musiclover7 Junior Member

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    Update. I was wrong. The vehicle drove for a bit, but had died again. Now I have the red exclamation point as well as all the other lights on my dash. Dang. Dang dang!

    Anyways, my new code reader came in the mail today, but I can’t figure out how to read codes on this vehicle. I’m looking and looking trying to determine where to plug this thing in. Google apparently assumes people can’t be as dumb as I am apparently as I can’t find anything on the subject either, but I will keep looking.
     
  10. musiclover7

    musiclover7 Junior Member

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    Ok. I got the code reader plugged in, turned on the car, and the code that returned just says: 0 DTC

    Reading around, seems that this might be because my ODB2 reader can't communicate with this car. Shucks.. I paid like 57 bucks for it on Amazon, which may be cheap, but I was hoping it would be sufficient.
     
  11. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Yeah you need to read the thread that everybody keeps posting everybody time somebody asks about needing to troubleshoot their car there's a whole thread about this I use a cheap i n n o v a brand scanner from advance Auto that's I think a 3200 series of like a $60 scanner and it reads pretty much everything important on the Prius to me at the time from that I moved to Toyota tech software and now that I have that actually I rarely bring the Toyota tech laptop out to the vehicle much anymore as I use the inova mostly. So there's always things like that going on Yes you need a capable scanner that can at least get you the basic rundown of what's going on I discovered the Inova scanner strictly by accident I already owned it for just working on junky Chevrolets and goofing off generally I've only used a thing a couple of times then Prius became a thing in our life and seem to be needing a scanner pretty regularly for a lot of nothing and I tried the inova and it read everything I needed to read at the time and still does.
     
  12. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    It is pinned to the top of this very forum: Gen2 OBD2 app review
     
  13. musiclover7

    musiclover7 Junior Member

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    I actually bought the scanner I have from Amazon based on your mention of the brand inova. Mine is an Inova 3020. The app it connects to is called RepairSol2 which I notice is not listed on the page dolj linked to :( . Unfortunately, the unit powers up and pairs to my phone, but the report it generates is not finding any codes. Sounds like this model is not compatible. I will try to return and see about getting the 3200 model.
     
  14. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Yeah mine is just the base thingy It's not real tiny it's a little larger than your phone but it needs no part of your phone or apps It just plugs into the OBD2 port and rattles off the codes when I hit the button to get ABS I have to hit the ABS button and then there's Toyota enhanced codes which I use that and it reads the same thing as the global or whatever but it generally reads most everything I've had going on so far I've been really happy with it It was a scanner that was given to me by a dead mechanic.
     
  15. mr_guy_mann

    mr_guy_mann Senior Member

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    I look online and don't find innova 3200. There's a 3100, but that only appears to do a few systems (ECM, ABS, airbag, maybe transmission?)

    Something like the Autel AP200 would be much more capable on a Gen2 Prius. The ThinkDiag or Anyscan have more (different) functions (and higher cost).

    edit: I didn't review many devices (like most offerings from innova) because either the adcopy suggested that they were too limited, or the "full function" models were too large and pricey for me to consider.

    I have several "pro level" scantools at work, so was only interested in (inexpensive) phone based apps and devices that I can toss in the glovebox.

    Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
     
    #15 mr_guy_mann, Feb 22, 2024
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2024
    Tombukt2 likes this.
  16. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    Yes mine's a 3120 or something like that It's a little bigger than a phone It's not that little tiny thing now that they have I don't know what that is a 3520 something like that I just use this to get the basics before I have to run in and get the Toyota software lot of times the point is is I don't have to because this thing innova will pick up Believe it or not a lot of it.