Fur and dirt causing major battery problems

Well, once the tech realized that fur and dirt was the problem, s/he would have to remove the fan to clean it out, and also remove all of the ventilation ducting to inspect and clean if necessary. Then s/he would have to look inside the battery and make sure no fur or dirt was within. All this requires removing the hatch trim for access.

So how much elapsed time would that take - maybe three hours total?

What amount would the tech receive out of the $720 labor invoice: $150?

 

DH's opinion is that this repair was the subjective type.

a little steep but considering cost of living there maybe standard
should have been 0.5-1 hour of labor for this- plug in scantool, check codes, basic testing.

this should have been included in the first charge. this is the tech milking the diagnosis because diag doesn't pay.

could have been included in first charge- scantool does this pretty much automatically. just because they plugged it in a second time, they charged for a second time from the sound of it.

reasonable. this is about what DH would have charged.

reasonable, as above.

job was $720, could have been reasonably as low as 500. the tech probably pulled $180-200 for himself from that job depending on hours billed/per-hour charge. some of those look like flat dealer fees and not hourly labor charge billed. assuming the guy knew what he was doing from the get go, maybe it took 3 hours. it takes DH 15 minutes to get to the battery but they billed 5-6 hours to do a battery extraction for a body shop. he's done them in the parking lot in 20 minutes.

just the world of dealer labor for ya... trying to lay it out there.

 

I use my prius as a rural route vehicle, open window, 100 miles a day on dusty roads, I've used a generic a/c filter , more of a foam material, behind the battery vent cover, and clean it monthly. I've also started to use an air gun to blow out the area as well. Interesting description of your initial problem, thanks for posting.

 

Rondodog,
Is it possible to clean out the battery fan myself? Thanks!

PS-I have an English Mastiff who travels in my car all the time.

 

I got to the fan on mine today to check for dirt. Took less than an hour total. Mine was clean. I have never heard it come on before so I tested it to make sure the blower worked.

 

Anyone know how similar it would be to clean a 2010 battery air intake and fan?

Thanks

Barn

 

2006 Prius

We recently had the same issue regarding dog hair clogging the blower and over heating the battery. The battery needed to be replaced, luckily it was still under warranty.

Does the heating filter solution work? Does it provide enough air flow over time?

 

Wonder if you could use a lent trap cleaning tool to extract the dirt. Or maybe a vacuum with a small tube extension?
Toyota Dealer should have used a remote camera to check the cooling fan if you can access it from the rear seat's vent. It's a great tool for mechanic.

 

You're right. The dealership keeps all the money. The technician works for fun.

In addition, the dealership doesn't pay rent, health insurance, workmen's compensation insurance, or utilities. They get all of their equipment—lifts, diagnostic equipment, special service tools—for free.

Heck, they don't even have to pay taxes. It's just pure profit. Cha-ching, baby!

 

I use my 04 Prius as a rural route Postal vehicle. Here are pic's of my dirty HV battery from driving with window down on a dusty rural postal route, 100+ miles a day. These pictures were taken last summer. Vehicle now at 212 k.

PriusChat Forums - northwichita's Album: HV battery

Last summer on a 100+ day, my rear HV fan started screeching just before shutting off the car. I bought a salvage replacement fan, opened up the duct work, and found pieces of filter I had used stuck in my original fan. I cleaned the rear HV fan and seeing the fan blades half full with dust, removed the battery casing and found a very dusty HV battery. I vacuum cleaned and then used an air gun to remove the majority of the dust in both the fan and the HV battery. Reassembled, had more difficulty because I forgot about disengaging my Scanguage with battery reconnection, but finally got everything going again.

I cleaned the battery again several weeks ago,it was dusty on the top, though not quite as bad as the first time. I do use a improvised filter, but suggest that if the filter gets dirty , the battery should be cleaned perhaps annually. The drawback with the filter, it does impede air flow, using one does increase the battery temperature via scan gauge readings.
My car's HV battery seems to be in good condition despite this harsh treatment, consistent readings of 0.0 from cell SOC differential ("csd" XGauge).

Summer of 2011, very hot in Kansas, string of 100+ days, I no longer use the improvised filter for the HV battery, the filter slows air flow , the battery gets hot and the rear fan runs on high . I now will clean out the battery of dust in the spring before summer. Again, I drive with passenger window down delivering mail in a dusty climate.

 

I cleaned a huge amount of dog hair out of my battery cooling fan at the beginning of last summer. This is going to be a regular part of my annual maintenance from now on. I'm gonna do this at each start of summer oil change (which is still another 6 months off for me).

I didn't disassemble the HV battery though, I just cleaned the fan. Now I've done it once I'd say that cleaning the fan and ducts will probably only take about 40 minutes next time, everything basically just clips apart back there.

The first photo shows the rear hatch area with the right side panel removed. (I also labelled a few things here for the uninitiated ).

The second photo shows my full of dust fan. I started cleaning it right there in the hatch (hence the big ball of fluff at the bottom of the photo where I'd started to pull it out. I soon realized however that this was going to make a big mess, so I unclipped the fan and motor and took it away to clean properly.

 

Cleaned mine last night

I've carried animals in the past. I always play on the dirt roads. All I really saw was dirt on the fan blades (a lot... 50% caked on). Everything else seemed ok. I peaked into the battery casing through the vent slot (black plumbing removed) and found cleanish batteries... I'll assume innards are not clogged.

After brushing off the fan blades and vacuuming out the housing, I powered up the car to observe the fan in working order. Quite the air flow too.

 

The LG folks wrote up a nice blog entry about this issue in Gen2 Prii.

Luscious Garage | Blog | Prius battery cooling fan cleaning, P0A82

 

Perfect, I'll be due to check mine at the next oil change in a few thousand miles. I don't think our cabin is dusty/furry enough to worry, but I'll check anyway.

- D

 

Sorry for the above, somehow my thread got integrated with Pats.

 

It seems in this era of dealerships charging 120$ an hour that anyone who owns an OBD2 compliant car should buy a code reader. One hour of labor and you saved the cost of the code reader. In my case because I'm a gear head... I bought a more expensive code reader that also includes real time info and erase capability. It also includes ABS codes as well. This reader cost me about 250$ the cost of about 2 hours labor at a dealership. If a dealer charges .5 hours to hook up their code reader... thats about 60$ or the price point for a cheapo reader at Kragen. I bought an Inovera reader and its easy to use. In the time since I bought it ,I have used 4 times on 5 cars to diagnose problems, most recently on my Prius to reset an ABS light and code and to diagnose a coolant valve failure in my wifes Prius. I didn't actually do the repair work, I let the dealer do that, but I pulled the code, referenced and researched it, and finally, knew when I went to the dealership what it should cost to do and how long it should take giving me way more power to negotiate at the dealership for the work being done. The dealership actually charged me less because they just double checked the codes and never charged me for that fee because I had already pulled the code.The service manager explained that he felt the code reader fee was waved because I pulled it and they just double checked that all was as I reported it.

Rather then complaining you got overcharged and saying you could have fixed the defect for way less then the dealership charged you, why not be proactive and smile when you pull the code and fix it yourself knowing that you just saved a ton of money. All it takes is 10 minutes to pull the code and 1/2 hour on line researching the code itself and its usual remedy.
-Paul R. Haller-

 

I have a $5 program for my android phone, from the market called TORQUE + a OBDII blue-tooth adapter from Ebay $21. Gives you all the codes, temperatures for everything in the car and, everything else you may think of; All for $26.

 

some of you may know that I will be traveling across Europe for Xmas.

We have a dog so I was concerned about the blower/ fan which cools the main HV battery being blocked by dog's fur.

Here is a picture of mine at 146,000Km's. Country Ireland, wet climate, low temperatures in the year.

 

With the help of the pictures and links I was able to complete this job in 1 hour, thanks to all!. Even though we have carried our Great Dane and Black Lab(also know as the shedder) in the back seat of this car an untold number of times our blower was pretty clean for being 6 years old(see pic). There was dust build up on the fins and a few dust bunnies and that was it. I cleaned it with a few pipe cleaners and the air compressor. We have leather seats and I would be willing to bet the cloth interior on the other cars contribute to the build up in the blower.