The Kansas City Auto Museum received a 2001 Prius as a donation, it has 317,000 miles on it. It was drivable at one time but then it was not driven for a while. I was volunteered to figure out how to get it running again. The car is in a museum building used for car storage. The first thing it needed was a new 12 volt battery. We were able to buy and install the OEM Panasonic battery. The new 12 volt battery currently tests at 12.4 volts (while not connected to the car). The Ready light will not come on. The check engine light is on. We tried two different ODB2 scanners which returned no codes. The car has almost a full tank of gas. In the 2nd image below, does the main battery have enough charge to start? Do any of the Prius screens show the kWh of the main battery? When we used our scanners to check for codes, the key was turned to Start. I assume it would need to be in Start to energize the car's computer. Anything else to know for the scanner to read codes? From reading various posts on this forum it looks like getting Techstream software would be a good next step, but is there anything simple I might try/check first?
welcome! do the brake lights come on when you apply the pedal? yes, tech stream. if there are lights, there are codes. but there could be something wrong with the obd i suppose
This car has brakes??? I wouldn't know, I have not driven it yet. Ok, you made me feel really stupid that I cannot answer that question, but I will definitely check that next time I am there. It can't be that simple. But I am hoping it is. If it is, you win a chance for one of our prizes!
Sounds like the hybrid system is not booting; that's dependent on the 12V battery, then the HV battery supplies the starting voltage to the gas engine. The SOC (state of charge) on the HV does seem low! Takes a special charger (i.e., see dealer) to charge the HV, if needed. If you can get the hybrid system to boot, the Ready light should come on and if there's enough volts in the HV to start the engine, that will charge the HV battery.
Start is the last key position, against a spring, when you let go it returns to the ON position. Like most cars, you simply need key ON for the computers to be powered and communicate with your scan tool. The network in a Gen 1 was kind of a plumbers' nightmare. They weren't using CAN yet, and they had various computers speaking on the K-line (not all with the same protocols or baud rates!), others talking on Toyota-proprietary networks like BEAN, a "gateway ECU" that could pass messages from one of the networks to another, etc. Last I knew, it was really only Techstream that knew all the stuff it needed to know about how to talk to all the ECUs in the car, sometimes by changing the baud rate or protocol, relaying messages through other ECUs, and so on. The chance of finding any mass-market scan tool able to do that would be about nil, I would guess, especially as so few Gen 1s were ever built. The market was probably never big enough to justify the effort.
AT, someone donated an '01 Prius with ONLY 317k miles? That car is still a puppy... Suggestion: if you can find on eBay (or elsewhere) a set of 2001-2002-2003 service manuals, those books should be part of the Museum library in support of this vehicle.
