I was wondering if the Prius II has OBD? How do you enter that mode and what is shown on the MFD? I read somewhere that you press the Start button twice quickly to enter OBD, but am fearful to experiment. I'd like to see information on the 12 volt battery's condition so I have a baseline for checking it. Thanks.
Search for Maintenance Mode. Don't be afraid to enter Maintenaqnce Mode. The car returns to normal when powered down. I found it easier to get the voltage readings through the ScanGauge plugged into the OBD port under the steering wheel.
Jim, thanks for the tip as I did some searching for maintenance mode. It seems that OBD is only available for the level III and up as OBDs are shown on the NAV screen. I have the base model (II) without NAV and was hoping for other info to be displayed on on the MFD. I tried setting the parking brake, pressing Power twice and pressing disp on the steering wheel. It did not seem to work. Did I miss something?
I found an interesting segment on Facebook for those of you who are members there. You just key in "Toyota Prius" in the search box and the main page has a tab for "Ask an Expert". I inquired about OBD for the M II there and Mark was nice enough to reply that there is no way to access OBD on the G3 M II using button combinations on Prius itself. I've asked around on several forums and contacted two local dealerships and that seems to be the general conclusion. The good news is that the Scanguage II is a small device made of black plastic very similar to the Prius dashboard and steering column. It looks like one could be attached to the top of the column easily visible with no interference to steering or signal functions. They run about $170 but should show real time data on (hopefully) both battery systems along with a plethora of other information including coolant temp, ICE rpm, instant mpg, internal codes, etc. It even looks like it has an optional "aqua" display to somewhat match the look of the central dash readouts. Here's the link: http://www.scangauge.com/ I'll invest in one and see how it works.
The ScanGauge on a beanbag mount transitioned from my 2006 to 2010 but is not as elegant. I fished the cable up behind the steering wheel to come out the flap behind the steering wheel. I tied a loose knot in the cable that I hang on the right lever when I disconnect the unit. The bean bag slides around & without the knot the cable fell back down. Several useful gauges. Would be nice if there was a blank space in the dash to cut a hole for the cable and nestle the display. Would be nicer if the car just came with some useful instrumentation. Sorry my quick answer misled you.
ScanGauge II Many (or all?) of the Ask an Expert folks on the Prius Facebook page are members here on PC and at least a few of them are moderators here. I've had a Scangauge II for many months now. A really good price was when it was $126.17 at Amazon (http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...auge-ii-sale-139-95-amazon-2.html#post1109939). There's a long running thread about usage of Scangauge beyond the stock gauges it ships with at http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...discussion/64406-scangaugeii-work-2010-a.html. There is a list of XGauges for the 2nd gen at http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...77-updated-list-gen-ii-xgauges-scangauge.html but they're of no use to 3rd gen Prius owners as they're all different (values for the 2nd gen don't work on the 3rd gen).
Thanks for the link on SG II. I've now decided after reading most of the posts there that it might be wiser to wait until SG has updated their units to be completely compatible with the G3. Maybe a year from now the units will be fully re-calibrated. I see on the SG thread everyone trying to adapt specific coding to make it compatible. I'll put off the purchase as I want the unit to be "good to go out of the box". BTW, I got the dealer to modify my reverse beeping to "just one beep and then quiet". He also removed the annoying continuous beeping if a seat belt is not fastened. Then he changed the remote so one click opens all doors. The bad news is that screwed up my KARR security system so I need to go back for more reprogramming.
I haven't followed the thread I cited closely since I don't have a Gen III. It's not a matter of "re-calibration". It sounds like it's more a matter of software (and possibly hardware) design changes. See http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...06-scangaugeii-work-2010-a-3.html#post1017058 for why. If there's no way to retrieve certain data without going thru multiple request, response, request, response, etc. then the SG II will not ever be able to display that data. As is, the unit is fully compatible with any car that has OBD II which was required on all cars sold in the US since 1996 (ScanGaugeII - Fequently Asked Questions and many other places I've seen). The issue is people are trying to display other parameters well beyond what any SG II ships with and that takes time (for discovery) and some just aren't possible or are never found/published. I'd like know MG1, MG2 and inverter temps but it seems nobody has posted it. It's definitely possible to retrieve them via some means (CAN-view index) but for all I know, they might not even be on the CAN bus.
What I would use it for is: 12 volt readouts (at rest and at load) traction battery readouts (same) coolant temp (could be useful in the desert) ave mpg (to compare to CONS readouts) perhaps rpm while ICE is running any codes produced by OBD II BTW, I was a member of a great forum for my previous car, and as a sticky, they had a spreadsheet of all OBD II codes and brief meaning for each. I'm really disappointed that my G3 M II does not have a diagnostics display built in.
All of the above except #2 can be found without adding/programming in any XGauges. They're all part of the stock set of gauges and they all should work. I don't bother w/the mpg readout on SG since it requires some training and calibration. IMHO, I think it's of little use to add yet another electronic trip computer to tell me what it thinks my mileage is. That's just me... I stumbled across a spreadsheet of Gen III XGauges so far at http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...6-scangaugeii-work-2010-a-18.html#post1062586. hope this helps.
Thanks for the spreadsheet! More information is always better than less. If I get a SG II, the codes can be deciphered. I wonder why the traction battery can't be monitored with a SG II?
To monitor the values beyond the stock ones, you need to enter the TXD, RXF, RXD and MTH values in the row corresponding to the you want into the SG. NAM is just a suggested 3 letter name and you can use anyything you want (limited to 3 letters). None of these values are documented by Toyota. I have no idea how people are even discovering these. They must have equipment to monitor, capture and analyze stuff on the CAN bus, background info on the protocol, probably some programming skills and lot of time. Again, it's possible that some values are beyond the capability of what SG II can do. The new 2004 Toyota Prius : My CAN Project is some work someone else did on his own for the 2nd gen. I think hybrids and certain fuel efficient cars are unique in that there's actually a set of people who have knowledge and care to do the reverse engineering and research to figure out XGauge values. I'm semi-active on my my350z.com and nobody there would bother. I used to be active on maxima.org and wasn't even aware of ScanGauge in any form, at the time. From quick searches, it doesn't look like anyone there has bothered. Perhaps your inquiries about why are better directed to http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...discussion/64406-scangaugeii-work-2010-a.html as this thread title and initial post were semi-confusing to me. When I hear people talk about "OBD" in the context of Priuses or semi-recent cars, I'm thinking of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics#OBD-II.
Very interesting links - the CAN project was fascinating, but way over what I would be interested in monitoring. Add to that, he needed to significantly modify his Prius to accept the display screen for the parameters he's monitoring. I do miss my old car's built in DTC displays right on the dash - it seems a shame Toyota did not incorporate something like that on the MFD. At any rate, thanks for providing as much information as is out there and I will consider getting a SG II. Again, I'm mainly interested in monitoring the battery(s) as many members here complain about unexpected loss of power from the 12 volt system leaving them stranded.
