Hey guys. 2007 Prius with 160,000+ mileage. Owned it for two years. Been running great for me. Until today. It's hot out. Been sitting in the sun. In fact, the CLOTH seat was burning when I went in to take it for a drive to work. Pulled up to a stop sign and pushed the gas, as normal and it was almost like nothing was there. Finally pulled out and it was this deep hesitation from it. Pulled over. Tried it again and it's still not great. It will REV, but it didn't want to GO. No check engine lights yet. Just hesitation and weird revving without any real warning. I'm at work now, and I parked it in the shade hoping that this is just a symptom of it being really warm out. Please tell me I'm not totally effed.
Just tried it again. 40 minutes after parking it and it seems to have magically went away. I'm keeping an eye on it, and I'm definitely interested in others who might have had the same issue.
What model and year car is having the problem? Your info profile says you have a 2nd gen 2007. This is the plug-in Prius Prime forum.
Weird. Not sure how I have that. Its the base model hybrid with an ICE. Running today without issue. My assumption is this was from the heat, but I still want to figure out what part was effected by the heat.
welcome! i think you're right, been a lot of that this summer. however, your battery is older, and is probably part of the problem. it might be worthwhile checking/cleaning the intake grille and cooling fan.
12 volt or THE battery? I changed the 12 volt last winter and have a bluetooth device that actually displays the voltage of that (handy!) and it rides at 13.3v almost all the time.
hybrid battery is the one more affected by heat, and has the cooling fan and intake grille. it has a major effect on the performance of the car. the 12v is only for booting up and a few accessories.
I will look into the cooling fan and intake. Thanks for the heads up. Didn't even know about those. I'm still getting 48-50mpg. I would assume mileage would be effected by those not operating properly.
potentially, or if there is clogging starting to take place, reduced mpg may come later. there are youtube videos of cooling fan inspection, and the grille is easy to see next to the back seat.
fyi, the 13.3v your bluetooth is indicating comes from the inverter charging the battery. That's not the real state of your battery, check it when it is cold, not after driving, usually overnight at either the battery terminal at the battery or the positive terminal in the fuse block on driver side above the driver wheel well. Also, check your inverter coolant for movement of coolant, check in ready condition listen for pump and see if movement in tank, take off the top look in.
The main warning sign for my failed HV battery was poor throttle response (like a golf cart sort of), loud revs, 1 purple battery bar, and constant engine running.
Happy to report this hasn't happened again since this incident. I'm chalking this up to overheating, which means I probably have some work to do in cleaning the fan around the battery. For now, I'm parking in the shade. I never checked the status bar of the battery when this happened. Might be worth me finding an independent refurbisher around here to get it checked out.
