Welcome to PriusChat!! Can you click on the little icon that looks like a cloud or a flower and post the three digit INF subcode (INF codes provide additional information) for the p0aa6 DTC. https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2018/04/145252_2006_Prius_RM_-_P0AA6.pdf
P0AA6 is high voltage ground fault. That can come from 2 places. One is the air compressor for the ac if it has been replaced lately or rebuilt and they used the wrong refrigerant and its shorting out as the ac compressor on our cars use high voltage the other and much more common malady is a bad hybrid battery the high voltage battery. Not the 12 volt battery. Its usually from a bad module or 2 in the hybrid pack that is leaking electrolyte and causing a high voltage leakage. Any high voltage leaking to ground is highly monitored for safety. You can disable this hybrid warning by clearing the code and continue driving for a while but there have been reports of fires in the battery compartment doing that. I would imagine your hybrid battery may have seen some heavy duty use and was overheated a few times as evidenced by hearing the battery cooling fan coming on in high mode in the back seat. Loud fan noise in the back seat. That may crack the battery module and allow electrolyte to leak out. You may have smelled some funky smells back there too. Or your running on a rebuilt battery and the interconnect buss bars & nuts & bolts are corroded and the re builder did a very poor job cleaning them. Basic craigslist whack a mole get it out the door job. Basicly the hybrid battery is severely corroded. There's thousands of post and pictures about this on this site. use the search forum button up top and search: hybrid battery
The numbers are 526 and 613. The car will turn on and display the Christmas tree of lights on the dashboard, but it will not start unless the codes are reset. The 12v battery is good, and the hybrid battery was installed May 31st of 2017, so I would hope it’s not that. It’s like this is a mystery to everyone I talk to....they say it’s either the motor, the inverter, the ac compressor, the hybrid battery or transaxle. So I don’t even know where to begin.
Well yeah I'm telling you it is probably the hybrid battery. You didn't get a brand new Toyota battery there like $4000. You got a whack a mole slap it together and hope it lasts a few months. Easy to tell. When you start the car what does the battery charge level and behavior look like on the battery charging screen on the mfd? Is it 2 purple bars and basically empty and not charging? Or is it going to full charge to empty real fast. Your mileage has probably been terrible too.
How long have you owned this vehicle, and how many miles are on it now? Has the transmission fluid ever been changed? Has this vehicle ever been in deep water or wet driving conditions for an extended period of time? https://attachments.priuschat.com/attachment-files/2018/04/145252_2006_Prius_RM_-_P0AA6.pdf The work up could be fairly straight forward, just perform step #18 in the above posted PDF (after first following the 'Inspection Procedure' on page 426, hint: Safety). It should quickly tell you either the inverter/converter is bad or the transmission is bad.
Unfortunately this is pointing you to look at the HV transaxle assembly or the Inverter with converter assembly. Follow the advice of SFO.
The Toyota dealership is telling us it’s going to be the transaxle, and it’s going to be $1750 with parts and labor with a 12 month warranty. I was expecting it to be a lot more expensive than that. I’ve owned the vehicle for about a month, and I bought it for 4300 from a small dealership in Atlanta. There are roughly 179,000 miles, and I have no clue about the transmission fluid.
The transaxle MG2 price has come down quite a bit over the years its $1200. + labor @140 an hour. They now come in 2 pieces the Mg2 and the differential section. So it may be the trans but since you are looking at $2000 here for that you may want to look at the hybrid battery too as it may need some work or possibly replacement also. A simple picture of the hybrid battery sticker will tell us if its a new battery or that battery was rebuilt. If it does have a new sticker than its worth the $2000 to get a new trans maybe. If its the original battery it may not be worth a $2000 investment if you have a whack a mole battery in the trunk which tend to fail quite often at very inopportune times. For a women it would be a horrible car to own with a whacker battery. The new battery sticker says: G9510-47031 The original battery that came in the car was: G9510-47030 If its says 47030 on your battery I would not put $2000 in the car.
I think the battery is still under warranty if I'm not mistaken, but I don't have any of the paperwork or anything that Dorman claims I need to have on their website in order to get another one.
Oh god it’s a Dorman. Dorman has a very high failure rate. They don’t honor change of ownership, Be aware that’s just a rebuilt battery using 10 year old cells. Cells that just so happen to hold enough charge to pass at the time of rebuild. And It could have been only 1 or 2 modules they replaced leaving the bulk of the battery’s in there to fail at a later date. From what I have seen here they don’t do a good job of cleaning up the interconnect either leaving behind corroded connectors. That battery is probably a mess. You Can read about Dorman by using the search forums button on top of this page and then search Dorman battery Last I heard Dorman was $1400 including core. Not sure if they will except a Dorman core.