Recent failure of 2005 PRIUS. My sister was driving the Prius. She needed to stop quickly and they smelled something burning inside (she felt it was electrical) She pulled off to the side and checked on the car and found nothing on fire. they thought they might have smeeled other cars that had smoked their brakes during the quick stop. So by not finding thesmoking gun she decided tocontinue on her trip and 100 miles later on the interstate it automatically switched to neutral. The car slowed down and left her stranded on the highway. After struggling with the car for a while and trying to restart it nothing would happen (No lights (Dash, cabin or headlight) start button also did not light up). Once help arrived they could not load the car on the trailor because the car was (locked in gear or park). Finally a tow truck driver arrived and he tried to jump the car (unsuccessful) then he was able to get the car on a flatbed. The car was taken to the closest dealor. They were almost useless. They told them they don't know what is wrong with the car and would have to just start throwing new parts at it and start at one end and work through the entire car. Any ideas are more than welcome. the car has over 100K miles when we gave them the car last year.
First off, welcome to PC. Take the car to a different dealer, a competent one. First thing to check would be the inverter coolant pump as well as the 12v battery. Tell the dealer they have an excellent scantool (Techstream) and have them do a diagnostic scan. I have seen inverter pump failures that set no DTCs. If DTCs are reported post them here. If the inverter pump goes out the inv temp will rise rapidly, could explain the burning smell. Once the inverter gets too hot the dc converter that charges the 12v battery will drop out, killing the 12v explaining the dead car. Hope this helps.
There was also this recall/limited service campaign on the inverter coolant pump at http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...ump-dealer-letter-technical-instructions.html.
Thank you for the ideas. I did forget one thing. The dealorship tried to pull errors codes but they were not able to because of the dead car. I will try a fresh battery to check and see if the car comes alive. Thank you very much we will keep you posted.
I did the recall as well. The dealer that did the recall was being very unprofessional with missing bolts and nuts on the radiator upper plastic cover. That got me worry about the whole thing.
Once the 12v is replaced attempt to ready to the car. If it doesn't ready the car should set some DTCs. If the car does ready check for turbulance in the inverter coolant reservoir. Note: after disconnecting or replacing 12v battery it will take two pushes of the power button with your foot on the brake to get the car in ready. So don't be alarmed if it doesn't ready the first try. Keep us posted.
Ok every one, The Prius was taken to a different dealorshipand they proved to be more aware of the Prius. So they had that car running in a couple of minutes. Of course the burning smell reappeared right away. So they determined the hybrid battery water pump (inverter pump I believe) had failed and was covered under the recall. So they reaplaced all the recalled parts and I think they even found additional recalls that had not been performed and well the car was fixed and did not cost a dime. I apreciate the help on here it was very helpful.
