dog hair and battery failure

Yes, this is a known issue. Those who often have dogs in their cars need to either (A) install a filter in the HV battery air intake vent and clean the filter regularly and/or (B) inspect and clean the HV battery fan as part of their regular maintenance. Doing task (A) will likely prevent a lot of cleaning of the HV battery fan that would otherwise need to be done.

Some hybrid shops (usually not dealers) will inspect the HV battery fan as part of a major service, but this is probably the exception as opposed to the rule. Hence, owners that often transport dogs in their cars need to be aware of this issue & take steps to keep the fan and HV battery clean.

Personally, I don't see this as a potential recall issue, rather, a matter of how an owner chooses to use their car and act accordingly. The car is designed for human passengers. If you are going to transport other things (e.g., animals, cargo that is particularly dusty/dirty) on a regular basis, it is the owner's responsibility to assess the impact of said usage and take appropriate steps to mitigate it.

 

do you have a dog?

 

No, nor do I expect dog owners to necessarily see this issue the same way I do.

 

Most of the cars that I have replaced the HV battery have either pet hair or a large amount of dust in the fan. In my small sample I would guess that is the leading cause of battery failure. On the rare occasions when I have replaced a battery and the fan is clean, it has been a low mileage older car (ie 04-05 with 50-80k) which I would assume the car sat for extended time. We have a lot of snow birds in Florida.

 

if you don't own a dog, do you think they were lying about the fur? where else would it come from?

 

Thanks for the heads-up on this one. I plan to have a large dog and live near the beach once I retire.

Bill the Engineer

 

mexican hairless?

 

I just cleaned out a 2007 Prius with tons of dog hair in the car. It was really gross and yes it did end up in the fan. The ducts had lots of dust and when I got to the fan, it had layers of dust and dog hair. Good thing I clean it out now or else it was sure to end up to be another battery failure statistic.

 

There are other things that Toyota could recommend looking at, but don't, such as transmission fluid. Since your car made it to 100K miles, then that is as good as it needs to be as far as T is concerned. Recalls are mainly about safety, and battery fan clogging is not a safety issue.

That's why enthusiast sites like this exist, as all the data that comes through makes the collective intelligence better than any dealership. A little proactive research goes a long way, if one has the time for such.

 

I have to say...Yes and No to this response.

For those of us that hang around Prius Chat or perhaps are more aggressive and diligent about seeking out information, the dog hair, battery fan intake, and failure possibility- is a known issue. But I would say it's not necessarily a commonly known issue with anyone simply not informed. And I don't think Toyota warns or recommends cleaning the intake on a regular basis, which I think they should. And since the problem can be mitigated or lessened considerably with simply the addition of a filter, I do think it is a potential issue for either recall...or perhaps more realistically, better design in the future.

Yes...the car is designed for human passengers, but as a hatch back, one in which Toyota themselves in their own glossy brochures pictures transporting bags of potting soil and plants...it's not unreasonable to expect that the vehicle can be used to transport pets. There is no warning from Toyota about NOT transporting pets.

I doubt this becomes a recall issue, if only because of the cost. But periodic maintenance and inspection of the fan and intake SHOULD become part of the maintenance recommendations for all Prius. And the addition of a filter? Might be a really good idea for future incarnations of Prius.

 

Wouldn't there be a way, maybe with one of those video bore scopes, to take a look at the squirrel cage blower and ductwork to ascertain whether a more thorough disassembly and cleaning would be in order? It could be a quick and easy addition to a 50K service (more often for pet owners) and possibly avert the expense of warranty and especially non-warranty HV pack replacement. Or does that make too much sense?

 

That won't make as much sense as charging you for a cleaning......then to discover you don't need it and still get charged.

 

it would have been nice if the o/p had been warned in the owners manual along with the warning to keep the vent clear of obstructions. or given a partial good will warranty on the battery. i guess that's the advantage of hanging out here from time to time.

 

I don't have a dog in the fight. But the other issue on Gen2 batt failure is running the HV battery down when you run out of fuel. So far Gen3 which have the filter and do not let the batt run down on loss of fuel, seem to have better batt reliability than Gen2.

I always have to ask my wife when our dog died to convince myself he never got a chance ride in our Prius. Ours was a Marley equivalent who lived near and about the same time as Marley...must've been related.

Yes I keep looking at the $25 scopes on Amazon for this purpose...have not tried it yet.

 

I wonder what sort of dimensions we are talking here. How far in from the back seat intake port is the fan? What length of bore scope would be required? I would assume that based on the direction of air flow through the duct work, the view of the squirrel cage presented from this approach would be best. I wouldn't want to go poking around in the HV box, for sure. Amazon offering a color scope for $25? I could find plenty of other uses for a tool like this.