my 2004 Prius 2 started to have a pretty serious issue today: during a 10 minute drive in the city, it lost power completely 4 times. The first 3 times it seemed like small glitch, the onboard computer reset and I briefly lost engine power, power steering, etc. The 4th time it happened it suddenly applied full brake power as well, causing a full stop and a near accident. Luckily I was only going 40 km/h at the time. The system came back on after a couple of seconds and I was able to get the car home safely. Never had any issues with the car before. Recently had an oil change, so oil level & quality is fine. Coolant level is at low, but not below it. Car Scanner app with ODB2 scanner found no error codes. Any ideas what could be causing this? Car might be worth 2k in good condition so I'm afraid this is a write off.
That red Prius looks to being pretty good shape I wouldn't be a right off for me somewhere something's cutting power or relay something a loose wire everything needs to be gone over pretty smartly battery cables not tight? On the 12 volt the 12 volt can't pass a load test? Something like this is going on the power just doesn't vanish It's somewhere It's not hiding it's just not moving through a wire or something I need to find out why voltmeters and things like that can be very handy if you can operate them you'll probably get the straightened out reasonably well The car looks like by the picture I can see on your profile like it's in very nice condition so I would think it's something pretty simple low voltage somewhere after a certain amount of time or something get the voltages checked if you have methodology and are able to access the rear HV battery You might just want to look under the cover to see if you see any corrosion frosting of the bus bar nuts grave dark discoloration on the bus bars themselves things like that soon as you see that then you know you've got a little bit of stuff to do
Ok I would hereby like to apply for the idiot of the year award. I hadn't put the cover on the battery compartment in the back after a recent battery change and so a stainless steel bottle rolled on top of it and shortcircuited the battery. Car drives fine now. I just hope nothing got damaged by my stupidity. Sorry for posting lol.
So you're 12 volt battery doesn't have the tray over it and it's constantly exposed? You need to make sure the red plastic cover stays on the positive terminal if you don't have that and you don't have the tray installed a wrench could slide over and really cause of funny issues and Sparks of flying might even put a hole in your rear quarter panel yeah it can do that so go buy a junkyard go buy a dealer get the little red plastic thing I have a few if you're close I can send you on at least have that I may even have several trays that go over the battery myself I usually throw this stuff in a pile in my shed that's out of the weather You really need to cover that 12 volt some kind of way.
Glad you figured out what happened & that it wasn't serious. (might have opened the main 100A fuse or worse) For future situations you might want to go over this scantool thread. Car Scanner is pretty limited on a Gen2 Prius. https://priuschat.com/index.php?posts/3290690 Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Yeah I removed the cover a while back and didn't put it back, but I put it back now, so this won't happen again
