I've noticed, just occasionally, that the blue bars disappear and the box goes yellow. Then the blue bars appear again. Any ideas as to what this is an indication of?
Are you saying your entire screen turns yellow and then goes back to normal? It sounds like the Multi Function Display may be on its way out, or possibly you have a bad connection.
Sounds like we might need a picture of the observed problem(s), as the descriptor isn't helping much.
Its either the hybrid battery is doing the pre death thing showing full change then nothing then full charge thing it does before it dies. Or the MFD screen itself is failing. If your not driving it much anymore your killing both the 12 volt battery and the hybrid battery.
just in this box: I've done a complete health check in techstream and tested the blower 1 through 6. Not sure what all the info on the left means in this test but there were no codes or anything:
Do you have a picture of the screen when the box turns yellow? I've never heard of or seen that before.
me neither. the hybrid battery looks ok thats a good battery for prolonging. (hybridautomotive.com) But your 12 volt battery is shot at 11.4 replace that asap its cold out that battery will leave you. Yellow box is odd thats not how that mfd fails but....
I just went out and checked the battery (car's been standing in freezing cold for several hours) in the dash service menu and it said dead on 12v and when I started the car it said 14v. So I don't know what to think
What did it say when you pressed the Power button twice (from OFF) with your foot OFF the brake? This would put the car in IG-ON. 14V when the car is READY is telling you the DC/DC converter is working as designed but tells you nothing about the 12V battery except maybe the 12V battery is pretty flat – which you already know. When you do the IG-ON test, you could also put the headlights on high beam. If the voltage plummets like a rock, and continues past 8.9V, just replace the battery and move on. If the voltage is stable above 10.5V you could try putting the 12V battery on a charger immediately.
Will do that but as you say, looks like battery so I'll look into getting another one shortly. May as well do it now rather than leaving it. Does another battery have to be registered in some way? Cheers Lex
there's the pic of what occasionally happens. The car runs normally with no warning lights. About the battery: I was looking at batteries on the net and it said the battery may need car to be registered with the box but apparently doesn't apply on this car.
OK- what you are seeing there is the battery gauge showing near "full". The gauge displays 1 to 8 bars that correspond to the State Of Charge of the HV battery (40 to 80% SOC) . At 1-2 bars the gauge is a purple/red color, from 3-6 it's blue, then 7-8 it turns a green/yellow. The car is designed to keep the battery at around 60% SOC - so seeing 6 or 7 bars is normal. That's what I see on my car which I use for 80 miles per day of mixed highway driving. I very rarely see 8 bars. If you drive in stop and go traffic, use the A/C a bit , drive up some steep hills, you would see the gauge drop further as the car pulls more power from the HV battery before using the ICE to recharge it. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Some cars do use a Hall effect sensor to monitor current flow into the battery and will adjust the voltage setpoint based on the battery's acceptance rate. They can also use a different charging curve based on the battery's age. So if you install a new battery, the ecm needs to know it so it can reset the charge profile. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
