Hello everyone! I am new to PRIUSchat and am a fairly new prius owner. I have only had my prius for less than a year and it has been a great vehicle for me so far. I kept finding posts in this forum that have helped me in my minor prius maintenance and HOW-TOs and thought I would join the community now that I am having some issues that are beyond me... So recently I was driving home from work and I noticed that the engine would rev up high when I was going up hills and sometimes I would have a hard time going after being at a stop light occasionally. I started to watch closer and it kind of seemed like the engine was not running right and like it wasn't able to produce enough power to properly charge the hybrid battery. I started to notice a gas or exhaust type smell and noticed that when I was having issues going, the hybrid battery was on one purple bar. I am not getting any misfire codes and for a while was not getting any codes at all. I recently have parked it in my garage to see if I can figure out what is going on with it before driving it any more. I saw somewhere that if you put it in drive and press the brake and then press the gas pedal, that you can force charge the hybrid battery this way and I tried to do that in hopes that it would work in a pinch if i need to charge it up at all. When I tried this it seemed to bog down the engine and then the engine stopped running and I got the red triangle with other lights. I now have error codes... I get P3190 "Poor Engine Power", P0038 "Oxygen Sensor Heater Control Circuit High (Bank 1 Sensor 2), P2601 "Coolant Pump Control Circuit Range/Performance", P0A0F "Engine Failed to Start"... they all say DTC Status: History Another thing I noticed is when I was driving it was this... if I was driving flat or even slightly downhill, the hybrid battery would charge normal and everything seemed fine other than the engine running rough(I could feel vibrations from it like it was going to die or struggling to run) but if it was on a slight incline or uphill my hybrid battery would drain and I would have those struggles(like it was using mostly hybrid battery to compensate). I am reaching out to you all in this amazing forum to see if anyone else has experienced anything like this or have ideas on things I can do or try to get my prius running again. I appreciate any thoughts, help, and suggestions and thank you in advance!
Do not repeat some actions madly, never! You need to find a device scanner for diagnosing the car. This can be an OBDII adapter with a phone and a program, a special cable, a laptop and the Toyota Techstream program or a car scanner for error codes. Engine problems can be due to bad fuel, oil, a clogged filter. It happened that a rag got into the air duct. You will have to sort it all out. But first, car diagnostics.
You joined . Lovely ! NOw one reads ..... This issue has about 400 posts worded all creatively here issues are like classic now 20 plus years old now . Will take a few days to sort between schedules . Good you have alternate transport . Very good. Mite be ahead of some.
Yeah I have an OBDII reader. That is how I got the codes that I mentioned above but the first few times I checked, I didn't have any codes or lights or anything indicating there was an issue other than the poor performance. I don't really know how to diagnose with it as of yet but it might be a long adventure with this issue so who knows, I might just learn. I have spent hours on here and other forums and there is so much similar to my situation. I am still scouring the forums looking for help. I thought I would post my situation in case someone might know what is going on from the symptoms I am having. I took it in to the dealer to see if they could find out anything and told them the codes I saw and they charged me $180 and just put the codes that I told them on a report. They wanted around $2000 to work on the exhaust and O2 sensor before they would look any further. I was told by another mechanic that it might be my catalytic converter is clogged as it has many of the symptoms. My first thought is to try with cleaning the mass airflow sensor and throttle body as well as looking into the catalytic converter so see if it is plugged. That is where I am at so far...
A clogged catalytic converter sounds about right and there is no way to clean them. If you did not live in a CARB state, an aftermarket cat would be my choice. The dealer knows how to check for this and would have done a far better job in diagnosis than some guys on the internet with no hands on the car. Also sounds like a bad hybrid battery. But you have to get the engine running properly before that can be determined. Forced charging is of no help. I would have it towed to an independent hybrid shop for a second opinion. Being in Santa Clara makes finding a value oriented shop that knows hybrids challenging. I would not be surprised if you aren't looking at $5k for a cat and a battery, maybe more.
In California you either have the money or you're going to make the time to do it yourself even in your HOA neighborhood you'll change out the battery before you open the trunk and close it again pretty good before they can get there to talk to you you'll be finished I don't know if they're guys out there like they're around here but I pay $499 or 450 to my guy I hand him my junkie battery and he hands me one all done up and drives off and then up at the shop he's got a drop box you can go up there with cash and take your battery up there and call them and he'll open up the lock box and you drop your battery in it and the money and pick up the battery that's sitting there waiting for you and that's that You may find that out that way I have no idea.
Yeah I may do the battery myself if it ends up needing it. I will do some testing and update what I have found. Thanks for the comments on this, I really appreciate it!
