dead prius

probably the smartest thing you did was post here. incredible the amount of information that folks here can give. i don't even have my car yet and i feel like i know about it.

advice here has helped me with making the deal, buying accessories, and having fun with the whole thing!

 

Are you using an off-brand gas? I try to stay with mainline brands...BP, Shell...In addition are you using Reg Octane?...Toyotas prefer REG only. I would tend to blame the GAS on this one...Toyotas just don;t stop running.

 

If a mechanic says "contaminated gas" with no further details and explanation of what happened, it usually means either "don't worry yer pretty little head about it, darlin'" or "I don't know what the hell is wrong with it".

However: are you in Florida? There have been stories recently about one refiner selling gas there with a high level of sulfur which is said to have somehow damaged fuel tank sensors. I don't understand how that would happen, but if it did, driving after running out of gas would drain your traction battery and cause the symptoms you named.

 

The problem with "bad" gas is defining what is bad about it. Water? Diesel? Dirt? Low octane? Each has its own unique affect.

If you are being told bad gas is the cause, require the dealer to prove it. To determine this, they had to take a sample. A simple sample, unless it is mostly diesel or water, will not reveal much. They need a laboratory to determine the percent content of contaminants, and what those contaminants are, so you can determine where they came from. This is a liability issue...yours and someone elses. If the dealer claims bad gas without a specific cause, you are stuck with the bill as well as having much of your future powertrain warranty invalidated. You need to find the cause to defend yourself and have those responsible pay for the damage, as well as an extended warranty.

On a side note, a typical gasoline engine will run with a fair amount of water or diesel in it. I am not sure of the Atkinson cycle though. Also, if a bunch of water was put in the tank, it would take a few days to settle to the bottom such that mostly water was pumped to the engine by the fuel pump. Lastly, the recent Florida and southern states issue was high sulfur content, which caused the silver contacts used on fuel level sensors to prematurely corrode, resulting in an open circuit, which causes most fuel senders to send a signal indicating the fuel tank is always full. In this case, people ran out of gas without warning. I don't believe this is your issue.

 

Someone else had a the same problem and posted about it either elsewhere in this forum or in priusonline.com. The problem was apparently not due to bad gasoline, since the mechanics are taking that car apart!

 

I am experiencing a similar issue with my Prius. I had it towed into the dealer today and show sometime soon what their diagnosis of the problem is. I was driving home from a road trip twenty miles after the last fuel lavel bar began blinking. I was going to fillup at the next exit (6 miles away). The gas engine stopped running and I had just enough power to get to the side of the road. Reading through my manual I thought the engine was stalled, so I turned it off and restarted the car. I was only able to get the car a few more miles before it happened again, this time not letting me put the car into drive. On the dash board I had a big red exclamation point in a triangle, VSC, and an exclamation point between two sets of parentheses. On the display screen, there was en exclamation point through a Prius outline. I'll update this post when I hear back from my dealer.

 

Unless I am misunderstanding your post, it sounds to me like you ran out of gas.

 

We put in the two gallons of gas that AAA sends with the tow truck, but the car still wouldn't start the engine. I now have three bars displayed on my fuel meter.

 

Re: dead prius - part 2

The techs who drained the battery are not the ones who changed the oil, right?

And, uhh, did you get the oil changed by a Toyota dealer? In theory anyone ought to be able to change the oil, but personally I'm not going to take a chance on a shop that needs an instruction card telling them how to drive it into the garage.

 

Just out of curiosity... did you tell the dealer you had just recently put gas in it? If you did, they may have jumped to the "bad gas" conclusion that way.

My prius did the exact same thing last week. Turns out the inverter went bad, and needed to be replaced. If you have the codes, post them. I'll compare them to my codes, and if there's overlap, you may also have a bad inverter.

 

I think we're confusing two seperate, yet similar incidents. jillg started this thread that I found. I didn't want to start a new thread when my problem sounded alot like Jill's.

My dealer didn't have time to look at my car today. I haven't even really explained anything to them about what's wrong other than what I've told Toyota Roadside Assistance. I expect to talk to the service department more tomorrow after they have had time to check the error codes.

 

The only one I recognize is P0A08, and that's related to the DC/DC converter. I don't have a complete list of codes, so I don't know the other ones at all.

I don't see any similarities with my codes (which I posted in the main forum under the topic "Prius Down!". So who knows. I'm going to be more careful driving mine in the future.

 

Jillg,

Evan Fusco, PriusChat Moderator published a 7 page list of Error Codes on page 2 of the thread "Prius Down!". It is attached as a .pdf file. Would provide a direct link but can't fiuger out how.

 

I don't see why that procedure should drain the traction battery. Did they explain?