Toyota ticked me off. I had them repair the ac on my Prius and during this time I read bleeding the inverter coolant can be a pain. They said they would flush and fill the inverter coolant for me. Over the weekend I get a P3130 error saying inverter overtemp. I did not have "turbulance" in the reservoir when I first bought this car and didn't know much at the time. Now, with getting the code I looked into this deeper. I told Toyota that this repair had been skipped and they denied it. Ends up the fluid was lower than it should and the tech said the pump wasn't working. "How did you bleed the system then". They gave me 2 gallons of coolant and I told them I will repair this myself now. Any advice on replacing the inverter coolant pump? I wanted to check voltage before buying a pump. Hard to reach area and two wires. Is this DC or AC? I can not see a fuse in the manuals and looked to be AC. That doesn't seem right but didn't have time to look closer. Any advice? Where is the best cost for this pump? I drove 2K miles with the pump out as far as I can tell. The only reason I got the error was from driving in a State Park for 40 minutes at 5-10 mph. Too much on the inverters I guess. I went on the highway for 3-5 miles and then the P3130 code would clear. Drove home 30 miles at 72 mph and no issue. Town driving since and no error has come back. I looked at the motor temps on the scan gauge and 130 degrees is normal with this driving in town. Can it be possilble to have a bad pump and never see over temp? Driving electric for so long must have been the cause, but am I or did I push it for the last month I owned this car?
If you truly do have a bad inverter cooling pump, you need to take care of that right away. If not, you can overheat the inverter and cause major, expensive problems (like needing a new inverter). Checking engine temps (or motor temps as you say) does nothing to tell you the temp of the inverter. Let's really drill down to the heart of the problem. Park your car in a quiet place, turn the ignition to Ig On (without starting the engine). Open the hood and unscrew the inv coolant rsvr cap. Look for turbulence (fluid moving (I know you already did this but reading your post has me in doubt)). Listen for an electric motor running (not the same sound as inverter hum). If you see no fluid moving, please get this fixed right away before you burn out an inverter. The scenario you're flirting with is, your driving down the road, the inverter overheats, the car shuts down and needs a tow. If you're lucky, the inverter will have shut down in time to protect itself. I've read posts here where one person kept resetting it to get home (letting the car sit for about 30 min) and burnt the inverter out. Don't mess with this. There's a reason why the system is liquid cooled. As for fixing it yourself, I'm told it isn't that hard and I'm pretty sure there is a guide here on how to do it (but I'm not positive).
I have no turbulence in the fluid or even a vibration on the pump itself. I did place the order for a pump. Not the easiest to get in or out, but getting it replaced. I have no idea how long it has been like this. I do believe it was out when I bought the car, but didn't know everything I needed. Only the slow speed for so long made the error come up. I have driven for a month and do not know when it went out or how long its been this way. I would think an error would have shown again. I drove 1200 miles on highway trips and never had issues. Makes me wonder what is going on here. I can't check the electrical very easy, so I hope the signal is truly there when I put the new pump in. Can't get the measurement at the leads so I will hope for the best.
Just finished installing the coolant pump! Works great! I can see and hear the turbulance now in the reservoir. Took the car to Toyota and received another gallon of fluid from them. I showed them green fluid came up from the bleeder and there is no way they did the job right if at all. I demanded more fluid so I could take care of it myself. I wonder if they ruined the orginal pump when they did there work. The car has 225,000 miles on it so I guess I am happy to have a new pump on it now and knowing the history as I go.
I am very happy with this car so far. Just filled it again and had 53.2 mpg. One other fill showed 60 mpg in city driving. It is strange to know that I did one highway drive and that LOWERS the mpg! Can't beat this mpg and bought this car to have it pay itself off in 14-16 months in fuel savings alone. My other vehicle is an Envoy. 14 city mpg. Lots to learn with repairing a hybrid. So far the car is solid and doing well, even with 200,000 plus miles on it.
