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Is my traction battery failing?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by shawnlevine, Feb 19, 2012.

  1. shawnlevine

    shawnlevine Junior Member

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    Yesterday at 153,000 miles my battery acted up again. I did the same repair as last time. Turns out again it was just one module reading a volt low. It was not the same one as last time. I replaced the bad module with one of the extra ones II bought six months ago and now my car is fixed again. The repair took me lestt than 3 hours. I will see how long it will go this time.
     
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  2. seilerts

    seilerts Battery Curmudgeon

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    Not that you have hills anywhere in Florida, but I would be curious as to how your battery performs on steep mountain grades. For people that live in very flat areas, this style of repair will be good for months at a time, but around here it would buy a few weeks at best. Anyway, if you don't mind putting in the time, you can probably keep the car going for another 6 modules over the next 100,000 miles. Please do update your story as time goes by, as it is important for other people out there to see how this kind of repair will perform.
     
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  3. shawnlevine

    shawnlevine Junior Member

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    Here is an update and maybe someone can help. I did the module replacement the other day and the folowing day another module went bad. I did the repair one more time. I did have some problems. When taking the hybrid battery pack apart the modules were swollen and popped apart. I immediatly took out all of modules out and put them in the freezer for an hour and they went back to normal size. I then finnished the module replacement. After driving the car 20 minutes or so I now get an trouble code p3015. I have been reseting it and it keeps coming back. According to the error code charts it means battery block 5 becomes weak. Does anyone know what this means? Any helpfull advise would be very appreciated.

    Also in repsonse to the last post. I did take a 3000 mile trip last month up to Indiana, Michigan and the Smokey Mountains. I went through tons of mountains and hills.
     
  4. jdenenberg

    jdenenberg EE Professor

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    Shawn,

    Any modules that have swollen have been overheated and either have failed or will fail soon. I hope that you recorded which ones had swollen. You should stock up on replacement modules as additional work will be needed.

    JeffD
     
  5. seilerts

    seilerts Battery Curmudgeon

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    If you get a code but voltage is normal, then the code is due to abnormally high internal resistance. That is exactly what I have observed in using replacement modules from another pack, especially if the state of charge of the two modules in the block were not matched. Any chance that one of the newest modules went into block #5? That would be the 9th and 10th modules counting from the passenger side.

    On your trip through the mountains, how quickly would it fall to 1 bar going uphill and reinflate to 8 bars coming down the other side?
     
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  6. shawnlevine

    shawnlevine Junior Member

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    Do you think the abnormally high internal resistance could be caused by a loose nut on the bus bar? One of the nuts might have been stripped a little and would not tighten as tight as the other ones. Maybe thats the cause. The car is running fine except for the error code tripping the warning lamp.
     
  7. jdenenberg

    jdenenberg EE Professor

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    Or it could be a high series resistance in one of the two modules in that pair. Where are you located? I see, in Florida. There is a good independent repair in northern Florida that could help - Mellors is the name.

    JeffD
     
  8. shawnlevine

    shawnlevine Junior Member

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    I'm still running with no warning lights. I am now upto 171,000 miles. After the
    last repair, I did clean the copper bus that connected module 9 and 10, added a little washer that helped with the stripped thread on the loose nut and, also used a little dielectric grease.
     
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  9. northcoaster

    northcoaster Junior Member

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    Hi Shawn, Thank you so much for all the info. I have a '06 prius w/124k miles and think I may have to address a battery issue sometime in the next year or so and GREATLY APPRECIATE your posts and info....Thanks again, Lynn
     
  10. shawnlevine

    shawnlevine Junior Member

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    Here is my latest update. I just hit 176k miles and the red triangle and amber circle with the exclamtion point showed up. Interesting fact it came on right when I replaced my left rear taillight. The LED on the old one went out. My ObdII Can tester did not show the error code, so I took it into a dealership and they told me it was P3000 - batery control system. Any advise would be appreciated. I can clear it, with my obdIIcan tester, but lights come right back on.
     
  11. shawnlevine

    shawnlevine Junior Member

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    Alright, I took the battery apart. The cells were all in good shape. I took all of the copper bus bars out and soaked them in tarnex. I put everything back together. I drove. 10 miles and the triangle and amber warning light came back on. The dealership said bad news you need a new battery and they just dropped the price $1500. I thought since all of the cells tested good, they can't be right. I purchased a used battery ecu and wires from a local prius guy. I tore the battery appart and replaced all of the parts. I then drove 10 miles and the lights came up again. Somehow I thought the error had something to do with the battery fan. I took the fan off and tested it bu hooking it up to an h.o. train set using some alligator clip wires. The fan worked well. I then isntalled the fan back on the car, then jiggled a plastic connector plug and it started running and then turned off. I checked the plug and. Ther were two corroded pins. I snipped the wires and soldered a wire two connect them together. Shazam, It's fixed. It was just one little wire and it had nothing to do with the battery. Just so happens that plug was right near the taillight I repaired the other day. It was probably bad and when I bumped the wires it lost the connection.
     
  12. uart

    uart Senior Member

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    Thanks for keeping us updated Shawn.

    BTW. Was the connector just the one that you unplug to remove the fan (close to the fan), or was it another connector somewhere there in the back?
     
  13. shawnlevine

    shawnlevine Junior Member

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    The plug that was corroded was not the plug that went directly into the battery fan motor. The plug that was corroded was clipped to the silver fan mounting bracket closer to the rear hatch. The bad wire was the black connetion, although I jumped the black and the brown. There were two or three other color connections in the plug that looked good.
     
  14. nh7o

    nh7o Off grid since 1980

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    Congrats on the find. I am wondering why there was no PA082 DTC set, which is battery cooling fan performance. If the cooling fan was not working, then that will also send some error code to the Hybrid Control ECU. If the dealer did not tell you about the other DTC's, that is not good. Would have shortened your search.
     
  15. khp

    khp Member

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    Hey Jeff those rebalanced battery modules I bought from you back in 2011 are working fine. 40k miles since the HV battery repair and still working fine.
     
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  16. jdenenberg

    jdenenberg EE Professor

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    That's great! I try to tell those here on PC that with careful rebalancing, you can do a mid to long term fix on a Prius battery. Those modules had 195k miles on them and a rebalancing brought them back to full capacity. My 27 rebalanced modules were used to bring 6 Prii batteries back to life.

    JeffD
     
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  17. khp

    khp Member

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    I have agree with Scott. I was very careful when I replaced the bad modules in my battery pack. I replaced the module block that was throwing the code and another set that was a little lower voltage than the rest with ones that were rebalanced and had a capacity of 6Ah or more. Then I discharged all the modules to within 0.020 Volts of each other and then assembled the battery and haven't had any problems to date. My spare module modules have been sitting in my shop since 10\2011 and the good ones have dropped about a volt after about 17 months and all good ones are at about 7.64 volts. The one bad module in the block that was the throwing the code has discharged down to 6.54 volts and it has about half of the Ah capacity of the good ones.
     
  18. khp

    khp Member

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    I brought out my little Supermate DC6 and I am rebalancing one module right now. More for my own curiosity than anything else. I needed to see if I remembered all the things I learned from you and Scott. <grin> plus see if they are still good. Thanks again