I have a 2008 Prius and was out of state and the car just DIED!! All went dead. Lights worked, dome light worked etc but nothing else did. Had no idea what to do. Hybrid battery has been rebuilt, twice! All services done. I've worked on cars my whole life. Used to manage a 58 bay service center so I'm not new to this arena. However, I am new to hybrids! I looked at all I could think of. Tried the master computer reset, disconnected the 12v battery terminals (both need to be removed), even tried to use the key to reset the car in the door lock. Googled it and no luck. LUCKLY I had been in contact with Jim, TMR-JWAP Called him late at night and thank God he answered. He had an idea of what it was. Low and behold, he was right. I think all need to be made aware of this Ludacris design flaw of the car so you know what to do if it happens to you. SO, if your car goes completely dead as mine did. Open the hood and go to the fuse box on the drivers side. Near the fender is a row of like 4 small fuses. The second down from the top is a 15 amp one. Pull it out to see if it is blown. If it is, this is the problem. Unless you have used it there is a spare in the lower left part of the fuse box. DON'T PUT IT IN YET! What has happened is the hybrid water pump has shorted or gone bad. Look down at the bottom of the fuse box just above and to the left of the headlight if you are standing in the front of the car and you will see the water pump. There is a plug with 2 wires on the right side of it. Do what you can to get the plug removed. Once you have done this you can put in the new 15 amp fuse and should be ready to go! Not sure how far you can drive but I was able to get where I was going and back plus a 45 minute drive to where I needed to go to get the new part. CARQUEST T1192 is the part I believe the service manual says you need to pull the drivers headlight and bumper to change it. I DIDN'T do that!! Not needed. Remove the brace that is at the lower right of the inverter that goes to the front of the radiator support. 3 bolts. It is easier to remove the pump from the mounting bracket and leave the mounting bracket in. Another bad design as you will see when you go to change it. Use radiator hose crimper clamps to not loose all the fluid when you remove the hoses. Not to bad to do! I hope this helps at least one person. I had no idea what to do. It could have been a DESASTER! 13 hours from home. Thanks again to Jim for his help. Be blessed! Toby
The content-free title is a very poor title for any thread, let alone a Sticky.thread. I believe the thread creator can still edit the Title to make it more descriptive.
45 minutes driven with no inverter cooling water pump...... MUCH different than driving with no engine coolant pump. I would guess there are currently dozens or even hundreds of gen 2 Prii currently driving around with a failed/failing inverter cooling water pump. If your typical drive is <45 mph or only a short distance, you would never know it failed unless it pops the AM2 fuse. The inverter will protect itself if it starts getting too hot.
Yes there are various levels of circulation quality of the inverter coolant circuit. Based on pump health and I believe contamination of the fluid itself, I noticed at around 35000 miles on my bought new 07 the fluid circulation looked poor. It barely showed any Movement at all in the tank. It was rippling a little. After I changed the fluid with new SLLC and added a bottle of Redline Water Wetter the circulation was intense. It looks like it boiling. And has been ever since. My working good pump was replaced years later under the factory tsb. Around 70000 miles and after pump was replaced I replaced the fluid again and added water wetter. I did some temp tests before and after fluid change using infrared thermometer and noticed the inverter was running about 10 degrees cooler after fluid change, I also got a really big mileage bump. The inverter runs very cool and can’t remember exact numbers but it’s about 75 degrees cooler than the engine. I also noticed a huge spike in inverter temp after the car is turned off just from the underhood heat and trans/engine heat sink. I believe like everything else under the hood the inverter coolant loop fluid suffers from break in contamination and that affects pump circulation. It sees a huge cross section of pure aluminum heatsink and is contaminated by that. At 35000 miles the inverter fluid in clear glass looked very contaminated.
No, you can't. I've tried. But if you want to change it, you can click the "report" button and ask a moderator to change it. I wouldn't do that on a whim because it wouldn't be nice to the moderator, but if the title really needs it, they are just as interested as you are in seeing that it's not misleading or otherwise inappropriate.
I am not sure why OP thinks this is a design flaw. I think this is a way to protect the very expensive electronics in the inverter/converter. If the fuse blows and you know why, then disabling this safety feature is not wise. It depends on the circumstances, of course, but I would not drive around with a failed inverter coolant pump. I would try to have it delivered to me, but I am glad everything worked out without a major problem. Still, this is not a flaw, just a failure of an electric part and the shut down is actually a very good design to prevent the inverter from frying itself. Yes, being stranded in the middle of nowhere is very unpleasant, but cars do fail sometimes. It's better to manage the failure than just grenade a very expensive part (inverter). If you were in a non-hybrid and the water pump or a hose failed and you lost all the coolant, what would you do? Most cars would just let you drive until your engine overheats and is damaged beyond reasonable repair.
VF, The problem is that when the pump shorts and blows the AM2 fuse, it totally kills the car, dash goes black, etc. When you're in the middle of traffic, this creates a massive suction of the driver seat cushion into areas where it should never go. I can't think of any good reason why the pump should be powered from a fuse that affects the car in such a way. When opportunity arises, I plan to install a 7.5-10 amp inline fuse right at the pump in all 3 of our family Gen 2's. A mechanical failure of the pump has no effect whatsoever, other than the inverter will protect itself if needed by going to limp mode if it gets too warm/hot. Why should an electrical failure be any different?
Ah, I see now. So the inverter has another way of protecting itself from overheating? Yes, this does not sound like a good design, in that case.
Just had this happen to me will update with some more details making the 45 minute drive with VSC light and red triangle lol lifesaver
Safely arrived to mechanic after 50 mile 50 minute drive. After 20 min check engine and orange circle with exclamation point came on. Just to verify: the fix is to replace the inverter water pump part CARQUEST T1192? $40-ish Amazon ordered
