Prius Dead, Jumper cable handles touched

You likely blew a fuse, or more than one fuse.

 

And/or the main fusible link ($$$s); and/or fried the inverter (even more $$$s).

If you have fried the inverter, don't buy a new one, buy a used one from a reliable salvage yard.

I really hope it is just a couple of small fuses.

FWIW, I would never disconnect the both cables from the donor car at the same time, Always the donor +ve – maintain holding the clamp in one hand then with the other hand remove the patient +ve. Place the disconnected cable in a safe place. Repeat for the -ve cable.

For the Prius, never have the donor car running. Remove the jumper cables immediately after the Prius has started. Never jump another car with the Prius as donor.

Because of what can go wrong and cause expensive damage, others here and other places advocate to never jump a Prius. I, on the other hand, don't worry doing it (it is, after all, in the manual) as long as it is done properly, but would never jump another car with my Prius.

PS, sorry originally missed that you jumped another car with your Prius, read it as you were jumping the Prius.

 

Based on histories reported here, I will never ever use a Prius to jumpstart a non-Prius. (And would be exceeding careful about the reverse, including never allowing the other car to spin its engine while the Prius is connected.) The 12V electrical system is smaller than on normal non-hybrid cars, and isn't designed to crank anything.

Learn how to properly connect and disconnect the cables, so (among other things) live clamps cannot touch each other. In this case, you should have disconnected first the ground clamp on one car, then the same clamp on the other car, before removing either positive clamp.

Best case, the fusible link in the 12V system blew. This is a special type of fuse, in the form of a wire section meant to be sacrificed.
I don't want to think about the various worse cases ...

 

+1 for hope it was just the fusible link that blew. But it could very well be the inverter or a host of other ECUs. Since the entire car is dead, I would say that is a GOOD sign. Most likely the main fusible link sacrificed itself for your stupidity.

This thing:



And it blows like dis:



As a TEMPORARY stop gap you should be able to solder/jump it back together. But that will prevent it from being sacrificial again. A replacement is $10 to $20 and a super pain the butt to replace just because it is something so simple yet core with lots of connections. If you jump it and then never fix it and fry it again, you are looking at a $4000 repair bill for the inverter new from Toyota. A salvage inverter installed by a shop mechy will still be $1k for the part, $500-$1k to put it in.

To prevent this from ever happening again, I recommend "smart" cables. They are polarity independent and have protection for sparking and shorting as well as an internal fuse to them. So when you connect them, it figures out the polarity waits a few seconds then connects. You are never moving or playing with live wires. Saw them on an infomercial long ago and love them. I have used them to jump lots of vehicles with my Prius. The Prius is the "mountain goat" vehicle for us, and so when we park it in ski country to go skiing for the day, it is sitting in below freezing temperatures cold soaking for 12 hours. There is always someone in an ICE vehicle with a dead battery, and the Prius has jumped even the largest diesel trucks with my toy jumper cables. You can tell they are seriously considering not being rescued by the guy in moose antlers in a Prius because it would be so unmanly to their giant truck, but when it is -20F outside my 1000W 110vac inverter for an engine block heater or my 100A jump capabilities look pretty good.

 

Welcome to PriusChat! Reading the whole thread, I would say it's a great reason to carry a portable jumpstart pack (see threads passim - use the search function!) - I bought mine from BatteryMart.com and have used it many times on other vehicles (and once on my 2009 Gen II) - Good luck!

 

This is why I'll never jump my Prius or somebody else's car with my Prius unless they sign a contract guaranteeing to pay for any repairs that might occur due to an issue while jump starting, which they'll never do so ya. I hope the fix is cheap and good luck.

 

Glad you got lucky... the fusible link is cheap vs a fried inverter or ECU(s).

 

you guys are brilliant!

 

Never jump another car with a Prius because:
1) Its 12 volt battery is not overly powerful.
2) A mistake can be very costly.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Following this hook up and disconnect sequence will minimize the chances of short circuit:

1. Hook up red cable to donor car positive battery terminal.
2. Hook up other end of red cable to dead car positive battery terminal.
3. Hook up black cable to donor car negative battery terminal.
4. Hook up other end of black cable to dead car bare/grounded metal.

1. Disconnect black cable from dead car.
2. Disconnect black cable from donor car.
3. Disconnect red cable from dead car.
4. Disconnect red cable from donor car.

The bad scenario is when you have red and black leads both connected to the donor car, then disconnect both red and black leads from the dead car. Now all you have to do is touch the two loose leads together and you've got a short. Following the sequence above avoids this possibility.

Shorts can happen real fast, and can be scary. I was installing a battery in a jump pack, just not thinking, managed to short it through a wrench extension. Nice loud pop, and fried wire insulation.

Still, as mentioned above, the Prius battery is not that strong. If you're in a jam, and you're careful, and the car you're jumping is not a truck or a Desoto, you'll be fine. But it's not a good practice. Better to have a jump pack.

 

1) Doesn't matter. Once the Prius is on, the inverter does the heavy lifting. And a 100A stable continuous output is really quite awesome. It is more than enough to turn over even the biggest diesel rigs. Conventional cars have a wimpy alternator and battery only. You might get one good crank out of the battery before it is not outputting very much and many cars have sub-100A alternators. Those with 120A or 200A alternators will generate a quarter or half that output at idle speeds. And unless you are in your car revving the engine when the other car cranks their starter, the Prius wins every time.

2) A mistake in any vehicle built this millennium is costly. Even a tractor has thousands of dollars of ECUs that will be fried very quickly with stupidly reversing the polarity of the conductors. Not a scenario that is designed for in a car, it would be way too expensive.

 

On a hot day or when the engine is warm ... a winter cold start can pull hundreds of amps even in a passenger car, I've never looked up the worst-case current for a big diesel rig starter. Conventional passenger cars have been spec'ing batteries that can supply 700, 800, or more amps for cold cranking.

Even a Prius aux battery is capable of supplying 300+ amps if demanded, though you would never expect to see that in the Prius (and a good thing that, because there's a fuse in the positive battery terminal rated less than half that).

If the Prius is READY ON, then yes, the DC/DC converter is supplying current, but it has a fairly hard limit around 100-some-odd amps; there's a thread where Bob Wilson (I believe) tested, and watched its voltage drop steeply near that maximum. So if you attached a high current draw, you would likely load down the converter and have the rest of the demand being supplied by the aux battery.

The recommendations to let the Prius charge the other car's battery, but not try to drive the other car's starter, are about avoiding the chance of large current flows through the 100/125/140 amp (depending on generation) fuses that are in the Prius aux battery and DC/DC converter current paths. Those fuses can be inconvenient to replace ... they're not common types that everybody stocks, and the one in the engine compartment is a big pain to get to, though the one at the battery's not so bad.

-Chap

 

I also have theoretical concerns (not yet supported by any specific hard evidence on the Prius) about how well the Prius inverter holds up against the vagaries of the many different charging systems on regular vehicles. When the other car starts and spins up, its charging system will also fire up to 14+ volts, possibly back-biasing the Prius inverter. How much can that inverter safely withstand? What is the real range of outputs the Prius could face out there in the wild? What sort of transients may be seen during jump-start spin-up and alternater-regulator system energizing?

Absent better information, and considering the cost that some folks have experienced, I simply refuse to jumpstart other rigs. So far, other and safer solutions have quickly been found.

 

My Prius ONLY jumps cold soaked vehicles. Last time it was -20C outside at the base of the mountain. After a 7+ hour ski day (which was awesome because it was too cold for the tourists) a diesel battering-ram-death and the 2 guys that were supposed to be in it were in the parking lot with their hood up. The engine probably kept the heat for less than an hour. The battery then sat at sub-freezing temperatures for the rest of the time and they didn't shut their door all the way (they think) draining the battery. Quick jump in the Prius and off they go.

Again this is the difference between a normal car and a Prius. CCA means nothing to a Prius. Cold Cranking Amps just means that if you have a 500CCA battery that is fully 100% charged, and discharge 500A for 30 seconds, the voltage never goes below 7.2v. A 7.2v starter won't spin so won't turn over. A power supply that can supply an ideal 12v at up to 100A indefinitely will be just fine. A starter with 12v on it, is super happy whatever the temperature.