Prius Main Battery Disconnect

the main battery is used to power the electric motor to spin up the gasoline engine, there is no starter. Therefore you need the main battery hooked up in order to start the vehicle, it cannot be driven without it. If the charge is depleted below 40 % SOC the vehicle will not start.



its fairly easy to hook it up you know, unless your missing parts, if the case and everything is on the battery you can bolt it on and hook up the two wires and plug in the ECU, its fairly simple. The voltage is isolated as long as the battery case is not off.

If you cant install battery you will need a tow to the dealer

 

Now, hold on a sec. This is an excellent learning opportunity
for an independent, and we know how important that is. If you have
time, check out some of the training resources kicking around on
the net -- my slides, autoshop101, the Emergency Response guides
at Toyota... all of these can help you be both safe and confident
on hybrids, and I'd much rather see you grab this chance than just
give up and push it into Toyota's bay! [And believe us, there
are a few "hybrid qualified" guys over there you wouldn't want
muckin' around back there either -- you get all kinds, as in any
field.]
.
Where are you out of? This is making me wonder how convenient
it would be to stop by and make a new friend..
.
_H*

 

I'd have a go at it, as long as you don't touch an electrical contact there should be no problem.

 

The disassembly it the easy part. It's getting all the pieces back together that takes some doing, and no, having a few left over is not a good thing.

Tom

 

Unless the battery is damaged somehow, it would be VERY difficult to get a shock from it. It's disconnected -inside- the metal box by a relay. The internal connection is made by a relay. Any short of either power lead to ground will shut it down. The relay is only closed if the onboard computers are happy when you try to start the car (foot on brake pedal, you press "ON").

Toyota didn't want mechanics to be getting shocks or electrocution. It's bad for business.

The duplex outlet on the wall is more dangerous!

 

gotta take it in... i thought you had to use scantool after battery replacement because car will recognize the change and have to be "calibrated" for the new battery...maybe wrong but i seem to remember...

where is galaxee when you need her ??

 

yes it does limp home... the gas engine while ok at highway speeds, has very little torque so acceleration from a standing start will be very very sluggish. a few here that have had battery failures describe it as like driving with the parking brake on

 

As Dave says, and if you succeed in stalling the ICE you wouldn't be able to restart it if the traction battery (the high voltage one) was not functioning. The car would shut off if the battery was getting really hot, or some other safety thing was happening. The traction battery is used as part of "normal operation", so it's difficult to operate the car without it. For example, the power steering runs off the high voltage system as well as the air conditioning. The brakes, computers, and lights run off the 12V system, but it is charged by the high voltage system, so you could rapidly run the 12V battery down as well.

I'm not sure what safety subroutines you would trigger (the car is run by computers, more so than any other car I'm aware of). Whatever, the car would not be happy without the high voltage systems working properly.

 

Yes, but he asked what would happen if the battery failed while you were driving. So I speculated on that. As I said, if the ICE stalled for any reason you would then be "dead in the water".

 

you said the battery is missing, by that I assume that your saying that you have a battery connector on the end of a wire harness coming in to the rear compartement. If so you need more than the battery. There is a control module and relay set and numerous other pieces inside the battery case that will need to be supplied as well. Unless you have all the pieces it's probably a better bet to get a used battery complete with all the components inside the case.

 

it is impossible to start the vehicle without HV battery, a MAIN battery warning will be illuminated on the MFD.

http://www.geocities.com/cscchybrid/PICT1312.JPG 01 prius