08 Prius with 245,000 miles. Occasionally after turning on, the car will not shift into gear, not drive, not reverse. After shutting down and restarting, everything works o.k.?????
That's no guarantee. Still, I don't think it's the 12v. I sometimes had that on my 2005 Prius. It only seemed to happen if I was in a hurry. If I slowed down just a fraction, pressing deliberately on the brake pedal and on the Start button, before a kind of deliberate move of the shifter joystick, it worked every time. I'm not saying to act like the sloth in Zootopia, just slow down a little bit.
Here is my tranny horror story, it might help someone, same issue, wouldnt go into gear, eventually we were stranded. I will cut the long long story short, after lots of messing around I came to the conclusion that the power train control module was bad, got one off ebay and was then told the dealer had to program it, then was told, no, turn the car on with a battery charger and leave it and it will program itself, and that worked, for a few days, then the problem returned. I went over the schematics and found that the main 12 volts for this module, which is mounted next to the engine ecu under the glove box, comes from a fuse under the hood, when i pulled that fuse it disintegrated into powder, fairfax county road salt destroyed the fuse. replaced it, no more shifting issues. car now has 300k on it still going.
Thats even a better reason to test it. If it fails, probably still under free replacement warranty unless it’s a really cheap one.
Hi i have a query I have a 2007 model prius when I'm pressing the accelerator full it is not shifting the gear it goes to speed of 120 but gear is not shifting Can anyone guide me? Is it normal? When I'm driving it slowly then the gear shifting is working fine but when I'm giving full acceleration then it doesn't shift the gear
What gears? The transmission does not have multiple fixed gear ratios like a conventional gearbox, nor does it have continuously variable gear ratios like a CVT. It does act sort of like a CVT, but it uses the electric motors to vary things, no moving belts on cones, or anything like that. In short, there is no mechanical changing of gears at different speeds. Search the Web and you will find descriptions of this device. Or start here: Introduction to Prius Power Flow | PriusChat
Which—the essence of a CVT being how it acts, not how it's built—means it is a CVT, and not merely "like" one. Power from the engine can come at one RPM and torque, and arrive at the differential at a different RPM and torque, the ratio of torques is the inverse of the ratio of RPMs, and that ratio is continuously variable without steps or shifts. How that happens is different from some other ways of building CVTs, but there's no one sacred way to build a CVT. This one does have an interesting extra feature: there can be, for short periods, a net power difference between the engine input and the differential output, with the surplus or deficit going to / coming from a battery. But a lot of the time you're cruising with next to none of that action to speak of, just engine power going to the wheels, classic CVT stuff. The ability to source or sink brief surges with a battery can be seen as an extra feature added to a CVT, though (clever Toyota!) without needing more parts beyond the gears and two motors already there.
Um, well, yes and no. If one considers this to be a vehicle with an ICE motor and "a very peculiar transmission", considering everything involved to be a black box marked "CVT", then yes, this is a type of CVT. If on the other hand one considers it to be a a vehicle with an ICE motor, two electric motors, and a HV battery then the mechanical gearing in the transmission is more of a power distribution device, which in addition to moving the car, enables energy storage and retrieval. Just calling it a CVT becomes very strange when considering that the car can store energy, and can move itself using only that energy in EV mode. (And stranger still on a Prime, when the energy can originate from an external source.) The ability to store energy and later move the car with it on its own is not usually part of a CVT's capabilities.
Yes, Prime-ing it makes a big difference: you then have a car with two prime movers: the gasoline engine, and the plug. A non-Prime (and non-earlier-PiP) is still a car with a gasoline engine as its only prime mover, and a battery-buffer that makes it possible for the CVT's input power and output power to be unequal for limited periods, with the battery sourcing or sinking the difference. It's a CVT with the addition of a limited lend/borrow feature. The way it's constructed inside is interesting, but doesn't change a functional description of what it does. You can add features to things without them ceasing to be things. We don't say ABS brakes are only "like" brakes, or power steering is only "like" steering. The brakes do what brakes do, the steering does what steering does, and an extra capability or two has been added on.
