DH has been driving a customer's 01 prius since yesterday, when it came in for a routine maintenance and two concerns. 1. dash lights go dim when switching from gas to electric 2. car wants to take off when in reverse both very intermittent problems. no trouble codes or other lights indicating a problem. he has not seen either problem himself yet. but this person has had the car for 80k miles, obviously she knows when something's wrong. DH noticed in his trip today that the MFD indicated the electric motor both charging the battery and powering the wheels, and didn't think that seemed right. has anyone else seen that before? otherwise it's been nothing out of the ordinary the whole time, which is rather frustrating when you're trying to diagnose the problem. also, if anyone's had either of these problems could you help us out with what was wrong and how the fix went? he's got a really busy week ahead (both his other team members are out of town, leaving him to do about 3x the work) and wants to get this problem fixed asap and not let it fall to the wayside with all the other jobs he's going to be doing. TIA everyone
I can't answer the other questions, but I see the engine charging the battery and powering the wheels at the same time all the time. Here's a picture from john1701a's website:
yeah, we see the that all the time too. but neither of us recalls having seen the electric motor powering wheels and charging battery without assistance from the ICE. just wondering if this was something 1g owners were seeing at all, if it's something he should be checking into as symptom. thanks for the replies
if it's a help I can go for a drive and try and duplicate but as I hardly ever have it on the energy screen, it's something I can't tell your DH with out a drive. yes or no let me know.
as for the dash lights diming when going in and out of stealth and running away in reverse, nope never seen those problems.
he only saw it one time, and can't get it to do it again. frank, if you could just keep an eye out for a regular day's worth of driving or so and let us know he'd really appreciate it. he says he's sure it wasn't a lag in the display, it went on for a few seconds. thanks! B)
You folks are great I know 2 G1 Prius drivers and I will ask them tomorrow if they are at work about this. I hope that PC can help.
just went to the grocery store, don't worry I had to go there so combined a test with a trip. No it never goes to both all I get is that no arrows or to MG2 or the battery. The Reverse problem and the screen dimming issue along with the arrow issue leads me to believe it's the computer that is the problem, and there have been a few of them pack it in. We in the peon group probably never hear of 1/10 of the problem ones. What does Toytech have in their data base? any thing along these lines? Please have him post what he finds. Thank you. Edit: OAT 6C BSOC 60% ICE temp 25C start 87C rest of the trip Battery voltage 293-304 volts
Ooops! Need to learn to read.... :blink: I don't think I've seen that. Was it this? also from john1701a's website - classic view, but there is a similar screen in HSD MFD shown.[attachmentid=2493]
frank: thanks, i'll let him know at whatever late hour he collapses in the doorway tonight (hrmm) priusblue: thanks what he's seeing is no input from the ice at all, but i appreciate you pulling up the pics from john's website. i should go check through it myself- thanks for the reminder.
this one came back the day before we left on vacation, and he finally was able to replicate the problem a few times to get a handle on what's going on. definitely not normal, some major intermittent problems when in reverse and when trying ot accelerate in drive. he thinks it's the HV ECU or the tranny. don't know if the lights dimming is still an issue or not... he was pretty freaked out by the rest of the behavior. he's i guess you could call it collaborating on the repair while we're out of town this week the next best prius guy in the shop and DH on the phone with him now and again, will post an update to let everyone know what causes this- once it's figured out and fixed.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jul 3 2006, 11:12 AM) [snapback]280574[/snapback]</div> thanks Galaxee would be interested in the final outcome.
I have no idea about the reverse issue but a common factor in dimming lights in conventional cars is a poor ground wire. Conventional engines usually have a grond to the chassis and the batteryt usually has a separate ground. I would suspect there may be additional locations on a Prius. After five years the grounds should probably be cleaned and replaced anyway. An intermittant ground can cause other intermittant issues with charging systems and with the on-board computer which I suspsect controls the transmission in a Prius. In any case, replacing ground wires is inexpensive. Without being able to actually verify a code or diagnose with the proper equipment this would be my best shot in the dark.
A little late, but I had both an '01 and '02 and never saw---or even heard of, on any of the Yahoo groups--- either of these behaviors. The wanting-to-jump-in-reverse is a bit scary. There was an instance reported of one "jumping" in D---on a tow truck!---that got some attention a couple of years ago.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tnthub @ Jul 3 2006, 07:13 PM) [snapback]280660[/snapback]</div> unfortunately there are no diag codes triggered, the best shot he's got is to go out with the scantool plugged into it and try to get some freeze frame info as it happens. real PITA. he drove this thing for 2 weeks before giving up and sending it back with a CNR last time, which really pissed him off. he's known for getting down to the bottom of things and fixing them, damnit :lol: thanks for the suggestion, i'll bring it up and make sure he's looked at that. wiring's always the first thing you check before replacing something major (warranty work pays for $%*& anyway) and he only had a couple hours with it, enough to replicate the problem and demonstrate to service mgr, then discuss with customer.
I wonder if it could possibly be some malfunction of the shifter cam and switch assy. Like a little piece of metal in there bouncing around and causing some signal problem. The reason for the jumping into reverse? That might not set a code as it would be seen as a normal function. This should be a good one no matter what he finds. Keep us informed Gal.
