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red triangle after stealth stereo install, sluggish, weird behavior

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by noctiluca, May 3, 2017.

  1. noctiluca

    noctiluca Junior Member

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    A few months ago I did a 'stealth' stereo install, (eg. Stealth install an aftermarket stereo in Prius | PriusChat) and the check engine light came on and stayed on, I assumed it was related to the install, bought a reader, never used it. Then I broke the jack on that stereo and just redid it with a new one. The red triangle light came on (check engine light is still on) but went off after a half hour or so. A few days later, it came on when I started the car after messing with the back seats (?) and stayed on. I was far away from home and drove it home anyways.

    The light has been on for a few days and I used it for minor errands, but today it started acting sluggish, barely accelerating. It seemed the battery wasn't charging, so I wired the stereo back to the factory harness and it still wasn't charging. Every time the car was on the fan was going, the weather has been very hot the last few days. I turned the car off, then let it run in park and it charged the battery up, so I took it for a test drive and it was acting normal again. After I stopped at a stop sign, it seemed to misfire a bit and then was barely accelerating again, though continued to charge battery.

    I'm going to take it to a mechanic but I'm a student and can't really afford a serious issue :( I'm just wondering if anyone has had similar experiences and/or have any thoughts about what might be going on. I bought the car used about 5 months ago, and up until today it has performed perfectly other than the lights.

    Any chance its related to the stealth install?
     
  2. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    You should check if you are low on oil.

    The check engine light might be related to a failing catalytic converter.

    A worse scenario would be hv battery failure. I believe this is probably your issue

    Reading the codes on the car would take away all the guess work

    SM-N900P ?
     
    johnjohnchu likes this.
  3. noctiluca

    noctiluca Junior Member

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    thanks for the info - do you think the failure could be related to the stealth stereo install? it seems like awfully coincidental timing. i dont have a reader and i dont think its just the cheap kind, i doubt it would work for this anyways, i guess the mechanic will do it tomorrow. ugh.
     
  4. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    It's not related to the stereo install.

    SM-N900P ?
     
  5. noctiluca

    noctiluca Junior Member

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    Ugh, so many codes:

    P0420 catalytic converter
    P1116, P1121, P1123

    Trans c2315 hv system
    P0852
    P3000 battery control
    P0ae0 replace battery
    P30185 battery cell #5
    C1259 he regulator form
    C1310

    I'm going to start researching how these things may or may not relate to each other or be resolved by a battery rebuild, but if anyone has any thoughts they would be much appreciated.

    Sometimes the battery charges and the car behaves normal, other times the battery just stops charging and then it barely accelerates. The transmission didn't start acting weird until these battery issues so I'm hoping it's related but no matter what this is not good news :(
     
  6. noctiluca

    noctiluca Junior Member

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    im also 60 miles from home, and am planning to attempt to limp back. if theres a reason other than whats obvious about why thats a bad idea, please let me know!
     
  7. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    Year and mileage of car? Where did you get these codes from?

    SM-N900P ?
     
  8. noctiluca

    noctiluca Junior Member

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    2005, 196k...from a mechanic
     
  9. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    Well this car seems to be looking at a replacement hv battery and a catalytic converter. Both will cost the same as the value of your car. Decision time

    SM-N900P ?
     
  10. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    If it's all highway driving, you might be ok limping. Acceleration will be a problem

    SM-N900P ?
     
  11. Q*bertZ

    Q*bertZ Member

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    This is what P0AE0 means. It happened to me. I rebuilt my '07 Prius battery and then messed up and put a bolt in a hole in the drivers side under the back seat. If you do this you will render the battery and all the repairs you just did on it useless, because that bolt will go right through the front relay in the HV battery and ruin the relay. Take the battery apart again and remove the front relay and look for a hole like this... picture included. you will need a new one.
     

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  12. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    This is one of those stories illustrating why it's good, when you can manage, to follow up any reported problem kind of promptly. If a light comes on and you don't drill down to the reason fairly soon, then later on you don't know whether you have one problem or a newer different problem or two problems, etc. Even if it's not feasible to fix the problem right away, you're in a much better position if you at least make sure you know what problem you're not fixing.

    I did, in fact, have bizarre experiences with the behavior of my Gen 1 after I did an audio install (chronicled here) that turned out, after much hair-pulling, to be caused by the audio gizmo I added coming with a wire adapter that mixed up the EJECT signal with one half of the AVC-LAN circuit. (Turns out that both makes it hard to avoid ejecting things, and hard for messages to get across the LAN.)

    On the other hand, the codes you're reporting don't include comm errors (Uxxxx codes), which I would kind of expect if that were what's going on. It's possible they are calling out actual problems, two or three independent ones, it looks like. Probably following the workup steps for those codes in the manual is the way you're going to find out.
     
  13. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    I hope you don't intend to add this to every post that mentions P0AE0. Please read the threads to see if it suits the context and please look at the age of the thread. It is of no use to the OP if they had the problem in 2010.

    In this particular thread, it looks like the P0Ae0 was a typo, given she describes the code to mean "replace battery", and she most probably intended to type P0A80.

    Just saying. (y):sneaky::whistle:
     
  14. noctiluca

    noctiluca Junior Member

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    correct - it was a typo. FYI this ended up being a battery issue and was resolved by buying a reconditioned battery. had nothing to do with the stereo install, that i was aware of :) onto new priuses and new problems now!
     
  15. edthefox5

    edthefox5 Senior Member

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    BTW when you have work done on the car at the dealer or anything else worked on what happens is sometimes the door or doors are left open for a long period of time and they have lights in the door and the dome light and if your 12 volt battery is really old it will not enjoy that. You may not even be able to start the car. or you may see a red triangle flash on the dash during boot up. That means the battery voltage has dipped really really low on boot up. Next stop is dead1 12 volt battery.

    So I bet you left your car doors open for quite a while with the stereo install etc. Which is another thing to think about on your 60 mile drive.
    Your 12 volt battery is suspect. How old is it? There is a simple load test you can do on the 12v to test it but you need to be able to use a voltmeter.

    Do you have AAA?

    Also its important you do not let the car sit out in the sun cooking to death. That heat is really bad for the battery you just paid for. It will prematurely kill it.

    Its best to keep the cabin as cool as you can because there is a vent fan the one you heard that continually circulates air via that fan through the hybrid battery to keep it cool. Cabin hot=battery hot.

    Always use a window shade in the windshield.Always use the ac. Cooler the better.

    Lastly the battery that was just replaced has not been providing good power for a long time. Thats not good because the bulk of the power the car has comes from that battery.
    You have been getting terrible mileage. Since no power contribution from that big battery the little engine has to make up for that loss of power so you have been pressing harder and harder on the gas to make up for that power. Basically giving that engine a beating. very very hard on a high mileage motor.

    High mileage G2 engines usually eat engine oil. Lots of engine oil. You just dumped alot of money into the new battery. You must be very vigilant on the engine oil level. So many people on this site have blown there motors not checking the oil and never know they were running dry. Then all of a sudden the whole dash lights up and the engine dies. Surprise! Can you afford a new engine right now? That's about $2000 and many many days of no car. No oil= blown engine. There is no warning light the oil is low till its too late. I bet its really really low right now.

    Alternative is easy. Check the engine oil every 2 days and keep it at the full line. Always.Just like your Dad always said lol.....

    Good Luck.
     
    #15 edthefox5, Apr 16, 2020
    Last edited: Apr 16, 2020