SSC 50P

:huh: Now you're just trying to provoke me. Not gonna work. You see, my computer stayed at work last night. So excuse me for not responding IMMEDIATELY.
Again, take your own advice, man.

I was joking, as indicated by the smiley/rolling eyes guy, about those orange cables.

I'm through with this... <_<

 

okay. the rule here is no personal attacks. :angry: you wanna start talking that way, take it elsewhere. that is beyond childish. i'm going to be the bigger person and walk away now, rather than giving you the satisfaction.

 

I agree that we should question things that we don't understand. At the same time, I see quite a bit of service tech-bashing that has no basis. Yes, Galaxee's response was a bit harsh, but I can understand her motivation.

I value the input from others, and the information that we share. I learn a lot here at PriusChat. We can (and often do) disagree with each other, but hopefully we will continue to respect each other as well.

 

I could very well see Andy's problem and agree, Galaxy did jump down Andy's throat a bit too quickly. Gee, hate to see her reactions to some of the critics we have in PriusOnline.

Anyway, I might not have suspected a bad battery but rather bad battery connections. A bad battery would mean the output at the battery itself would be low. Even if it were due to high internal resistance, at the battery terminals you would be on the outside of said resistance, reading low.
With the car off, there would be a very low load on the battery, say 30mA max for a short while, then would drop down. That's assuming the brake pump has done its thing, and all lights are off. At 30mA, to read 3 volts from front to back would mean 100 ohms between the two sample points. A digital multimeter draws negligible current to consider it non-existent.

I suspect that when they replaced the battery, they may have fixed the connecting points, including the grounding points as well.

Another point that was never referenced: the DC/DC converter output. I usually see 14V when that's running.

By the way, the car has its own voltmeter in the AVC diagnostic screen.

 

-ay ay ay, i get it, i was being overly sarcastic. i try to restrain that inner voice but sometimes it gets the best of me.

-bad battery connections make the car do some rather interesting things. like re-start the ice after you shut the car down and walk away from the car. :blink: there was one of those in the shop recently that the guys were all going through wiring diagrams and talking to tech assist and replacing various ecus and ground points and generally tearing their hair out over for a week or so until someone checked 12v battery cables.

-very well could be.

 

Recall gone bad... the tech just fried my Prius. I'm now driving a Corolla for the next two weeks.

 

Oops, and I mean a BIG oops, on their part.

It appears most of the issue behind the "fried" ECU has to do with a bug in the current THHT software release. A quick fix is to rollback to the previous version.

Sorry to hear about your Prius. There are worse loaner cars to drive, like the Dodge Neon.

 

I agree. There are worse cars to drive, but I've been spoiled with my Prius. I miss it.

 

Well, I can only hope they quicklyy fix your Prius and you can get back to driving it.

I also hope things are working out for you in Texas.

 

So your telling us that the 12 volt battery was only registering on your DVM 9 volts when disconnected, is that correct? if that's the case the Dumb tech that was working on your car doesn't deserve anymore of your money. Get a new dealer with a service dept stocked with real people that have a brain and can use it. The current one has an IQ lower than room temp.

 

Voltage measured across an open circuit definitely is NOT zero. Current measured THROUGH an open circuit is zero. A 3v drop across a cable would indicate there is at least some current running through the cable and the cable has a relatively large resistance. The voltage drop is equal to the resistance times the current. If you are pulling 1A then a 3 ohm resistance would cause a 3V drop. If the car is "off" and you are measuring with a multimeter, you're pulling only a few milliamps and the voltage drop of 3V would be very worrisome.

I'm not a car mechanic, so I don't know what the "off" current draw should be in a Prius (but more than a few milliamps would drain the accessory battery over a long period of time). I am an electircal engineer, though, so I understand this voltage and current stuff.

 

Thank you. Texas is great and would be absolutely perfect if traffic weren't an issue and my family and friends were there with me. My Prius being fried just gives me one more reason to come back to New Orleans in a couple of weeks for another visit.