New owner of '05 with only 200 miles

Are you able to verify step (c) on page 21-118? I'm really betting that is your problem (that the plug is not all the way seated). $5 says that's it.

This is my theory on what's happening. The plug is almost seated and the main voltage points are conducting but the indicator is not receiving the correct signal all the time, causing your intermittent DTC's. Reseat that orange plug and you'll be in business.

 

The battery is composed of 28 modules that contain 6 cells wired in series to give a total of 168 cells at a nominal voltage of 1.2 V per cell. This gives the total nominal voltage of 201.6 V as earlier stated by Britprius. Fully charged the voltage is between 1.4 V per cell or a total voltage of 235 V.

However, the HV battery ECU never allows the battery to be fully charged or fully discharged and maintains the battery to a state of charge (SOC) between 40% (1 purple bar) and 80% (8 green bars). Here's where I come a little unstuck, as I don't know the correlation between voltage and SOC. I will see if I can dig into Techstream and find that info. Taking a guess on the assumption that 1.2 V/cell = 0% SOC and 1.4 V/cell =100% SOC may be it is some thing like this:




Also bear in mind the status bars overlap as this diagram shows:

That is fairly close to the bottom end (<40% according to my musing above) of what the Prius likes. I can only suggest if you want to pursue seeing if you can revive it, I'd make a call to @ericbecky or @jeff652 (Hybrid Automotive) and see if they think it can be redeemed or would be worth trying the HA charger on. I wonder if it just needs to be charged to above 216 V???

That's all I got for now.

 

Who knows Toyota may want to buy it back and place it in their Toyota museum!

 

May we ask what other cars you inherited?

 

I've seen far newer Mini vci OBI plugs with Toyota Tech software version 10. They look almost like giant flash drives with the other end with that has a mini usb port that connects a USB cable to your computer and seen some Bluetooth ones too. The newer ToyotaTech software runs on the latest Windows like 7/8/10. Those older mini vci cables are dated.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Those are not Mini VCI. they are VxDiag.

Yes it is more modern, but also more expensive–not prohibitively though and worth the extra IMO.

VxDiag is faster and more reliable that the myriad MVCI that are out there. You get what you pay for.

 

Do not use the AC while trying to charge the HV battery. The AC runs directly off the HV battery "it is not driven as with most cars by the engine", but by an electric motor drawing around 3KW of energy that would otherwise be charging the battery.

Checking on some Techstream results of my own car 15.28 volts per module pair is 55% charged to it is reasonable expect that your battery at 220.16 volts divided by 14 (the number of module pairs) gives a voltage of 15.72. This puts your battery charge level at around 60% exactly where the computer tries to maintain it. I really do not believe you have a HV battery problem. Cant you get someone else to look at the display and tell you what they see.

Report sheet from my Prius.

John

 

Assuming your Prius is insured and plated I would drive it for a few weeks and put some charge / discharge cycles on the traction battery. It wouldn't surprise me to see it recover.
Avoid using AC, hard accelerations, steep climbs and high speed driving if you can.
I'm believe the Prius was willed to you because you were the only relative that owned and knew how to use a Fluke meter

 

I'd be interested in buying the car if you're not willing to keep it

 

I'm intrigued as to why you insist on driving slowly in EV mode when you're worry the battery might be bad. Just drive the car normally for now.

As Britprius said, at 220 V (60%) it is at the spot where the HV battery ECU like to keep it. I agree with Britprius also that I don't there is a problem with you battery, but it sound like your MFD is not functioning.

Agree with this also.

Agree with all that except high speed driving. High speed driving, at least up to 75 mph, is very gentle on the HV battery. There is no harm in doing that.

Let us know the outcome.

 

It's a new car, so he should not be driving the car hard anyway, the engine has yet to be broken in.

 

This is a very interesting story, Thank you for sharing. I love cars too and sounds like he had a true love for his cars! Hope you take good care of the Prius. You keeping the F150?

 

You should just buy a grid charger and charge that battery up. Once it's balanced, it'll probably be good as new

 

That is ok, but you need to drive 30 mph, not 18 mph. Also try and use the ICE more than electric. It might sound counter-intuitive, but trust us when we tell you that.

This is in the normal range. It has been mentioned more that once above. It is like you only skim read the posts without actually taking the time to fully understand everything.

Between 400 miles to 600 miles. This model (peculiar to North America) has a flexible membrane within the fuel tank. The effects of this is that it is makes the distance per tank and the fuel gauge very irregular to the point the fuel gauge has been dubbed the "guess gauge" in the US. There are tons of posts here on the subject. Search is your friend, and I encourage you to research this topic.

As stated above, your battery is in the normal range and appears to behaving normally, despite what you see on the Energy Monitor screen on the MFD (multifunctional display).

They originally did on the Gen I, but then removed it from future generations and for the most part, they were right. I think you don't really need to worry about this.

+1

 

Who's to say it is not balanced now?

 

Those Panasonic (then Sanyo) Eneloops are special low-self-discharge models. A 2005 Prius battery should not have been as good as an Eneloop then. And the Eneloops of that vintage were not as good as the current versions.