2007 prius with 69K miles: Had the 12v battery replaced 2 weeks ago by the dealership ($270). Today the exact same issues started happening (check engine light, exclamation triangle, car battery drained and had to shut off and restart to get moving again). Took it back in and they say the Throttle Body Assembly needs to be replaced now...$1369! Does this sound reasonable for only having 69k miles!? Anyone's help is greatly appreciated, thanks! Jason
I don't know how the 12V battery is drained... Or how that is related to a throttle. But problems starting the car can be caused from the Dealer overfilling your oil (which they have been doing).. What is with the dealers??? Gouging us for engine oil??? | PriusChat You can read up on Atkinson engine and how oil getting into your intake is a bad thing. I would print out the 2004 TSB and take it to them to suggest they didn't follow their own procedures and the TSB points out that it may cause damage.. ie. to the Throttle Body Assembly. Your mistake was taking the car to the Stealership for service. And not checking your own oil level. (Now there could be another problem that is something else as you didn't post codes and you say somehow the battery is drained. I suspect what you mean is the engine stalled and ICE was running and you drove around for awhile with no ICE running, which you should have noticed)
Note, you can likely solve this problem yourself with draining the oil by a quart and sticking a rag and solvent in the throttle body to clean out oil. (assuming it is overfilled which I will put money on) Cleaning Prius Throttle TB cleaning
Joe - thanks for the reply. Yes, I meant the gas engine shut off and I continued to run the vehicle on only the electric engine, but that lost power after a mile or so. When I turn the car off for a few minutes I'm able to drive it but the check engine light and exclamation triangle are still on. About the engine oil: It actually needs to be changed in about 200 miles so I don't know if that would be the issue (too much oil), should I check this anyway? We just picked it up from the dealership (have not replaced the Throttle Body Assembly) and no warning lights are on (well except for the maintenance required because of the oil changed needed). I'm guessing the codes were cleared and will come on again soon. I'm just in disbelief that these two things can happen at 69K miles within a week of each other. Any other advice?
Do not have the dealer replace the throttle body b4 trying this. Cleaning Prius Throttle There are very few components in the throttle body that can go bad. This procedure will cost about $15 and, I'll bet this will fix your problem.
I guess you are not understanding. When you are driving around with the engine off and assuming some warning sign. You can't keep driving the car without the ICE for very long. Since the battery couldn't be recharged you drove it totally running the HV battery down to emergency shutoff mode. It is likely if you just stopped right there when the ICE died and restarted the car, the ICE would have fired back up again. You have probably had way too high of oil because the dealer probably changed it. If it isn't 1/4" BELOW the top F mark, then it has too much oil and it is splashing around into the throttle body and the air intake, which can cause the ICE to not start. I'm saying you should do what I said and check the oil, drain out about a quart, clean it as posted in the links, then go back to the dealer and tell them to not charge you for any of this because it was their incompetence that caused your problems.
