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Update: '05 Prius engine suddenly kaput

Sometimes life is kind and problems go away easily.

I wrote here that my '05 Prius wouldn't start because the 12v battery was exhausted, probably by my having left the driver's maplamp glowing overnight.

I spoke about it with a Toyota service advisor. He suggested a do-it-yourself remedy. I took his suggestion. It worked. Here it is.

  • If necessary, use your physical key to unlock the driver's door. Set the Prius's handbrake. Turn off any after-market accessories. Leave the driver's door open.

  • Assure that your charger is not plugged in.

  • Expose the tinted terminal under the red plastic cover inside the engine compartment's fusebox. Connect your charger's positive grip to that terminal. Take care that the grip is not touchiing any other metal in the fusebox.
  • Connect the charger's negative grip to any nearby grounded bolt. (There are several.)

  • Set the charger to Boost mode.

  • Apply power to the charger.

  • From the driver's seat depress the brake pedal and press the dash's Power button. Release the Power button and with the brake pedal still down press the Power button again. The engine will start. It really will. (OK, mine did. That's all I can say.)

  • Leave the engine running. After a few minutes the gas engine will turn itself off. That's OK. DON'T DO ANYTHING! After a while the gas engine will turn on again by itself. Thereafter it will continue to cycle on and off during the recharging process.

  • You can unplug the charger at any time. It's done its job. Remove the positive grip from the tinted terminal. Remove the negative grip from the grounded bolt. You won't need further access to the engine compartment. You're free to close the driver's door and secure the car as best you can. The doors won't lock because the Prius is set up to reject the locking request when the engine is running.

  • Let the recharging process continue for about four hours. If you need the car sooner, you likely can get away with using it. I did. I ran one brief errand after two hours. The car restarted normally for the drive home. Back home I then left the engine running for the balance of the four-hour period.

As far as I can tell tonight, the Prius has been rescued with the expenditure of time but not money.

One little nagging doubt: the service manager closed his comments with the observation he'd send a towtruck if his plan didn't work for me. He did say, though, that what I've reported above is all he'd do if the Prius were brought in to his shop.

Your owner's manual details processes for resetting parameters whose values were lost when the 12v source went dead. These include the tailgate latch and the power windows safety circuitry.

One final warning: don't undertake this process in an enclosed space. Push the car into the driveway from the garage, if necessary. The charging process produces hydrogen, and the cycling engine produces the usual fatal gasses.

So there you have it. I've been a taker here for quite a while. It's pleasant to give something back. :-)

Reply to
Masked
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Warning: the world is not all attached garages. Some of us prefer to have our combustibles away from the house, and have detached garages--where it doesn't matter if you run the car inside.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

I'm comfortable with my warning.

Reply to
Masked

And some of us poor folk live in apartments that have to park outside.

Charles of Schaumburg.

Reply to
n5hsr

You made a blanket statement, which was incorrect.

You're comfortable with being incorrect?

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

What are poor folk doing reading about the Prius?

Reply to
larwe

Boy does that sound like an long and involved process.

Why not just charge the 12 volt battery with an external charger?

Reply to
Scott in Florida

It appears you deep discharged your 12 volt battery.

If it were mine, I would replace the battery....and I would make a mental note not to do that again...

Reply to
Scott in Florida

Thank you. It looks as if the car detects the power feed at the engine compartment's terminal and modifies the engine switch-on rules. Neat (but typical of the overall design). The only bit that I don't recall from the manual is the _two_ presses on the button and the subsequent business about leaving things running.

Reply to
Andrew Stephenson

I'd be comfortable with it, too. People with detached garages ought to be every bit as careful -- being detached wouldn't stop the garage from blowing up and/or poisoning anyone who stayed in there. C'mon, people, let's not be petty/foolish about this.

Reply to
Andrew Stephenson

What are certain parties doing reading this NG about decent and intelligently designed cars? It's a free(ish) Net, that's why.

And the poor need something to aspire to. (Like, that day when hybrid tech evolves and spreads to improve cars everywhere.)

Reply to
Andrew Stephenson

Okay. But whether the garage is attached or detached really makes no difference to the warning - Carbon Monoxide and Oxygen Depletion can happen in either type garage. Enclosed space is the key, and as long as you mitigate the hazards it doesn't matter exactly how.

The Hydrogen from the charging of batteries is a minor (but not zero) hazard, though you should have fan forced ventilation in a battery room, too.

If you will be running any internal combustion engine inside an enclosed space like a garage you MUST open the garage door and the side door(s) and window(s) to get air circulation. And you need to set up a few box fans or permanent exhaust fans for forced air circulation if there isn't a natural breeze.

If you plan to do this regularly, say you work on cars in cold climates with the big door down and all the side doors/windows closed for warmth, you MUST install an exhaust fume extractor hose system (probably fan forced) in the garage.

They regularly rig these fume extractor systems in Fire Stations on the equipment floor, so all the smoke and soot from a diesel engine start-up gets exhausted outside. They disconnect the fume hose right before driving out the doors.

NAPA Auto Parts sells all the pieces you'll need in their 'PSA Catalog'.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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