intermittent, but frequent, loss of ICE power at wheels (2007)

ok, so, i grabbed Torque Pro, and it looks like it's got a ton more options, including a ton of built in Prius Gen II specific monitors. I'm going to go attach it to the car, and see if it comes up with anything. If I figure out how to record specifically the parameters you asked for, then I'll get back with you after a short drive.

 

ok, maybe i'm a dummy, but i enabled a bunch of things on Torque Pro for logging, and just took a drive.. sort of assumed it would log on it's own.. but i don't see anywhere on device that it might've dropped a file. and i don't see any buttons for starting/stopping logging. what am i missing here?

... something potentially interesting that i saw from the display, was that with the pedal held down, i was rapidly jumping between 25-30 and 60-65 hp reported, the engine speed was not changing, but the rate of acceleration definitely was.

 

I didn't have the HP and the Tach gauges on screen at the same time, but on the second drive, I watched the tach, and it seems that when it's spinning wildly, it's around 5k RPM. Before it goes "loose", it gets up around 3.5k, then it rockets up around 5k, and hangs out there, if i keep the pedal down. I found a LOT of PIDs, but I haven't yet figured out how to log them, or get them into a custom display. I'll try and figure it out for the morning drive in about 7 hours. Bare minimum, I'll set the HP and Tach (and requested power if I can find it) onto the same display screen, and tell my passenger to keep notes. :-D

 

argh, 2 drives that *should* have had really good data, and no torqueLogs folder exists on my device. I know it *thought* it was logging this time.

Guess we'll try again on the next drive.

I don't know what to expect from the HP gauges, but what I saw outputtiing onto the Torque app display, was that most of the time the requested HP was around 2x or 3x the actual wheel HP reported. I don't know how much loss we're expecting there to be between the requested HP, and the actual HP, but I suspect that most of the time it shouldn't be 1/2 to 2/3 loss. I can see some loss for going through the powertrain, and some loss for charging the battery... but this *seems* pretty extreme. I can say that the car felt "normal" when the HP more closely matched the requested HP, typically around 3/4 to even. The car definitely felt abnormal when I was getting less than 1/2 the requested power. Rarely did the actual HP go over 40, although on my second to last acceleration of the trip, I was able to sustain the output at over 60 HP for several seconds, with the requested HP at 74. That was notably, with the pedal not quite to the floor, somewhere between probably 3/4 and full throttle. (unless full isn't logically quite at the floor, in which case, i was at full)

 

Still not getting logging working. No clue. It says it's logging, but nothing is saving. Tried a much simpler log with only one field, and that didn't save either.

I'l have a ride tomorrow and look at those battery stats, epoch, but i would say that it doesn't really make sense to me, that it's battery related --

1- i can pinpoint the exact day that it went from running properly to not running properly - when the original HV battery died, i had about 6 days warning based on the level-of-charge meter on the dashboard start to go all screwey, where i'd start the car and it was empty -- or full -- when it was the opposite level the last time i started it. After 6 days, I think it was, is when the code got set, and the car started limping along. Otherwise, right up until the code got set, the car was running mostly normally.

2- it seems to be crazyily intermittent. i haven't pinpointed a common status when it happens -- first i thought cold weather, then i thought warm weather.. but it doesn't seem to matter. Some days it's worse than others, and the outside doesn't seem to have any bearing on which it is. I'm willing to start disbelieving that the problem is temperature related at all -- sometimes I have problems immediately after startup, sometimes those problems go away. Sometimes I have them after it's hit operating temp... other times, it's not at all obvious that anything is wrong at all unless i'm watching the current milage indicator.

3- the battery appears to be draining and recharging as normal, based on the built-in display. While it does seem to be slightly more difficult to run the car "EV Only" than it should be (since I lack the EV button) for a long period, I don't have much of a problem with running several miles on EV on a charge. The last 2 weeks, I've started driving a *lot* of rush hour traffic time, which has had me around 30 miles in stop and go, or cruising highways at speeds often susbtantially lower than the speed limit. This has resulted in trip mileages well over 50, and even large sections at 60 mpg. Sustained driving at highway speeds (55+) typically gets lower than normal mpg, and drives with lots of acceleration (stop and go to highway speeds, several times) really hardcore drain the battery

4- Somewhat frequently, pushing the pedal to the floor, from a stop, will result in virtually no tangible difference in acceleration from rolling in EV only mode. (it will, however, drain the battery charge level extremely quickly)

Something that would support an idea that the battery may be having issues, though:

Today, I heard the battery fan come on. This is only the second time in the 6 years we have owned the car, that I've heard the battery fan come on. The other time, was when the original HV battery-dead code came up. That doesn't mean it never has, just that I've never *heard* it otherwise.

 

Toyota dealer cleaned the fan when they diagnosed the CEL on the original battery failure. After they did that, was the first time I heard the battery fan come on. Yesterday was the second time.. so ab out 8 months apart. (i was sitting in a parking lot, idling, for a very long period of time, trying to stay warm while i waited on someone). I have also occasionally noticed the charge indicator notch up once, for no obvious reason, but i've not yet seen any other signs that anything is wrong with the battery. I still need to use Torque to get the numbers that epoch mentioned though, i didn't have time to deal with it this morning. Probably tomorrow I can. And still trying to figure out how to get Torque to actually log something.... argh.