strange noise from electrical motor ... ?

There is not yet enough information to give you much help. Does this happen while driving, or stopped? Any driveability issues? Is this noise the same noise that you hear when stepping on the brake pedal at start up, when the brake actuator pump runs? I don't know what is meant by "battery charging noise". There is no battery charging going on when the car is off. But sometimes the brake pressure pump (actuator) will run when the car is off, as when the driver door is opened, or the hood is opened.

 

It sounds like the coolant heat storage water pump is running when it should not. Open the hood and listen in the area in front of the left side wheel, behind the headlight. If that is the location of the sound, then there is some problem with the pump controller.

Again, nothing gets "recharged", it moves hot water from the engine to the storage tank to preheat the engine at the next start up. It won't cause any real driveability issues, but needs to be addressed.

 

Try Avi's Advanced Automotive. He is a frequent contributor here. Avi's Advanced Auto Homepage

 

Sorry to revive such an old Thread.... my 2004 Prius is now doing exactly what the original poster described.

While driving and even when we park the car, we get about 4 seconds of Spinning Clicking noise, then it is quite for about 5 - 6 seconds, then it repeats infinitely! It continues to do this when it is parks for less then a minute then it is quite until we drive it again.

Sound is definately from the Drivers side of the car.... Any clue as to what it is? The car seems to be driving JUST fine....

 

i would follow nh7o's advice above.

 

I just went outside to record it... I just opened the door and the darn thing started clicking. It was last driven HOURS ago.

 

definitely an odd sound, if not the brake accumulator or coolant thermos pump, perhaps the inverter pump?

 

I recall hearing that sound on our Gen II, but only heard after shut down and don't recall hearing it more than once per cycle of shutdown.

 

Soren that sound you recorded is the brake accumulator pump. It should not be running every 10 seconds like that..
It would normally run first thing in the morning when you open drivers door for about 7 seconds and run again for 7-8 seconds after 3 or 4 brake pedal depressions...

It would seem your brake system is not holding hydrolic pressure reserve..

When regenitive brakiing ends at around 8 miles per hour hydrolic pressure from the pressure reserve tank is routed to the friction brakes.

I think your situation is very dangerous.."No brakes"

Has any brake work been done recently that could have caused this condition.. possibly bad pressure accumulator sensor got broken? Improper brake bleeding without teckstream computer to disable/test accumulator pump?
At any rate the continous activation of your break accumulator pump motor will wear it out prematurely.

Maybe brake ecu has gone wacky..
Have you had a dead 12 volt battery recently requiring a jump start. If so there is a chance that ecu is malfunctioning. A ecu reset would be a good think to try by disconnecting 12 battery for 3 or 4 minutes and reconnecting.
This would reset all ecu/computers..

If ecu reset doesn't fix problem go to dealer immediately...

 

We haven't had any break work done recently or any work for that matter.... last thing we had done aside from an oil change at the dealership was last Feburary, we had a Hybrid Battery installed (ours finally keeled over) - we took it to a shop certified to do the work on the Prius.

Head a dead 12 Volt back in March of this year - I replaced it myself and I've had an oil change at the dealership since then.

Will try the ECU reset tomorrow when the wife gets home from work. Hopefully that will fix it....

Thank you for the replies everybody. If anybody else has actually had this same condition... let me know what you did/what it was....