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Battery or the weather? Car will NOT accelerate.

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Priipriii, Jul 3, 2024.

  1. Priipriii

    Priipriii Member

    Joined:
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    Vehicle:
    2013 Prius
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    Hello guys, summer is here and the hybrid batteries are on their last leg. I am fairly certain these are still the original 13 year old battery cells that were never replaced. (Minus two of them, i replaced the faulty ones giving me triangle light and balanced the rest before putting them back). Car has now over 300,000 miles and drives fine, despite still getting engine codes to clean the clogged cat along with the O2 sensor reading lean. I put those on the back burner as my main concern is the HVB. I think a combination of both are causing my fuel mileage to be between 23-33 mpg.

    I can live with that, but my bigger issue is of more dire concern. And that is the lack of acceleration when the batteries are low and are overheated. They have trouble charging, even force charging at red lights they will not go up. Ive been monitoring them very closely with torquepro, and I even turned the AC off in attempt to collect enough juice. No luck, it accelerates at snail speed and the cars behind were probably pissed. The engine was doing all the work. Full throttle only to slowly get up to speed; felt very defeating to say the least.

    Now i do plan on changing them sometime in the future, perhaps to lifepo4. Right now im just doing bandage fixes to damage control. I know its not normal for my batteries to be 127F, and im fairly confident my fan is working and not clogged since i last took it out and cleaned it. But i just dont think its strong enough for these outside heats of 103F. Even with my AC running, its not cooling them very much. I can manage to get them as low as 115F at highway speeds, but nowhere near what the internet tells me of less than 110F. Do your guys battery stay below 110 in blistering heat weather?

    Also, i dont think my coolant pump for MG1 and MG2 is working. Engine temp always stays below 200F, but my transmission temp will climb and climb. Is this normal? I think i once seen it at 280F but that was after a whole day of driving. How could i check to see if the coolant is actually flowing. Id assume id get an engine code regarding that, but i have none. So maybe this is normal.
     
  2. Grit

    Grit Senior Member

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    Vehicle:
    2012 Prius
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    Four
    You can blast the ac at full but without the hv fan on, it wouldn’t do much temp wise. I removed the backseat, bench, spare tire coverings exposing the back much as possible. When just with AC set to high, my hv battery temp doesn’t even go down after the 10 mins. When the hv fan is sucking, man it cools fast. So
    Crank your hv fan all the way with Ac on.
     
  3. burebista

    burebista Active Member

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    2010 Prius
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    So this is my temps graphs for last saturday 20 miles trip at 35°C (95F) outside and 40°C (104F) inside.

    temps.jpg

    And this is how it looks my HB charge/discharge limits. o_O

    HB.jpg

    Basically I'm in the same boat with you. :)

    LE: Yesterday I did the same trip at 16°C (61F) outside temp.

    temps2.jpg

    hbv2.jpg
     
    #3 burebista, Jul 4, 2024
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2024
  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    certainly, if the inverter pump is bad, it should be replaced