The Affordable Generation 1 Toyota Prius
Manufactured between 1997 and mid 2000 it is recognised by the black bumper strip. With a 33 Kw electric motor and a 47 KW 1500 cc Atkinson cycle petrol engine. This engine is more efficient that the standard engine because it has a longer expansion than compression stroke. The drawback is poor low end torque but this is problem is overcome by the high torque of the electric motor.
The electric motor is why the prius have such good pickup for a small car. What’s more the engine shuts off at streetlight runs silent in bumper to bumper traffic and electric assist when cruising.
One feature that is not often mentioned is that the petrol engine require very little maintenance. This is a car with good fuel economy and low maintenence cost.
As we can now make this battery last the life of the vehicle with reconditioning and the Power Jockey, it now commands good resale value. Much more than a petrol vehicle of the same age. This model brings the benefits of hybrid technology to those of lesser means.
Most of our developments have been centered around the Generation 1 hybrid.
TIMELINE
1) 2008 – Repair hybrid battery
2) 2009 Develop reconditioning techniques for the hybrid battery
2009 Determine engine side failure that leads to battery failure
3) 2010 Introduce holistic approach to fixing Gen 1 vehicle problems
2010 Invented Power Jockey and introduce battery augmentation method
4) 2011 Successfully used Gen 2 cells in Gen 1 Prius
2011 Trialing Plug in system utilising on board charging for extended electric range
5) 2012 Planning alternator system to increase on board charging for plug in system
By this time we wish to increase the fuel economy of our plug-in hybrid electric Gen 1 Prius to 40 kms/litre.
Battery problems with the Series 1
The Nimh battery pack carries an 8 year warranty and by this time it is starting to fail. Lets not forget that this battery pack has never been serviced throughout it’s life!
The battery computer (seen under the seatbelt in the picture) checks all 40 cells for voltages, internal resistance and temperature. If it detects a cell with low voltage it will keeps charging the whole battery resulting in overcharging of the other cells and overheating of the weak cells. Sometimes you can hear the fan (middle of picture) working hard.
The triangle error icon indicates a fault and you will need a scan to find the problem. If you get the turtle as well it is quite likely that the battery pack is faulty, and will need to be reconditioned and repaired
Overcharging : Each tube consist of 6 X 1.2 volt Nimh battery. If there is a voltage drop because of a fault in this tube relative to the other 39, the CPU will charge the battery. The result is that the other 39 tubes will be overcharged. Overcharging will lead to overheating and reduction in the life of the battery pack.
When the vehicle first start up the catalytic converter needs to be heated up to temperature before the engine can go into silent mode.
If the battery is weak and unbalanced it will not go into silent mode. This will also lead to overcharging.
Low Battery Capacity : If battery capacity is low the charge indicator will go to yellow and then the turtle will come up on the display. If this happens very quickly then the battery is has low charge storage capacity. On starting the engine will rev for quite a long time attempting to force charge into the battery.
Before damage to cells occur it is best to install the Power Jockey at this stage to protect the battery. Added benefit is that you will get more power and fuel economy as well.
Air Flow Meter : If the car actually slows down when you step on the acclerator, it is most probably the air flow meter that is faulty. The petrol flow is cut off when you step on the acclerator. The tortoise also shows up telling you that you don’t have power. Sometimes the engine cut out. Very easy to confuse with a main battery problem.
Oxygen Sensors : This is a most under rated problem and usually undiagnosed problem with hybrid vehicles. Fuel to air mixture depends on the efficient working of the MAF sensors, oxygen sensors and throttle body. Poor engine performance will soon lead to battery failure from excessive load demand on the hybrid battery pack and erroneous charging regime from the battery management system.
12 Volt Battery : The 12 volt battery powers the car computers and systems. If it does not have enough capacity or too low a voltage you get strange errors. The power steering fault may appear etc. Change the battery and all will be normal again. Don’t just charge the battery get it changed!
Battery Computer : When the triangle error appear it is quite likely that the error code is locked in the computer. You will need the S2000 scanner to clear this code.
Throttle Body : There will be oil and carbon deposits on the throttle body. These can affect the opening and closing of the butterfly flap. If the vehicle starts but quickly stops this is most likely the cause. The throttle body can be removed and cleaned with solvent sprays but the best method is to place it in an ultrasonic bath.
Plug In Coils : Another source of problems are the ignition coils. If the spark plugs have irregular burn then the state of these plug in coils should be checked. You can test them by checking the resistance of the coils.
The above are the most common problems. The Generation one Prius is mechanically very reliable and even though it is 13 years old it should still drive quietly and smoothly and have good fuel economy as well.
Your options
1) By now you would have taken your car to your friendly Toyota dealer who will charge you $300 to put your car on their super duper charger which discharges and slow charge your battery over 24 hours. This however is not going to work because the battery is already more than 8 years old, has develop unequal voltages and low capacity retention. They are trying to charge 240 cells in series. If a fault develops in one cell charging is inhibited in other cells as that weak cell will heat up. At best you may get very temporary relief and the problem will recur.
2) Worst of all are owners who are told that their car is now only good for scrap. I have personally seen scrap merchants with these cars in their yard and there is nothing wrong with it except the battery. As they say knowledge is power. If they had known that The Battery Clinic can get their vehicles mobile again for less than $2000 they would not have thrown their vehicles away.
3) Purchase a second hand battery. This is also not good as like your battery before the battery is also close to failure if it has not already.
4) Let The Battery Clinic recondition your battery. We will give it a new lease of life and reconditioning together with the Power Jockey is the perfect solution for tired old hybrids.
How we recondition the Nimh Battery
It has taken us 3 years of trial and error to develop our technique. Much of this is learned from our experience in restoring and reconditioning lead acid batteries.
a) First we scan the vehicle to determine what is wrong. If the vehicle is not running at all we will have to charge up the main battery before we can start the scan..
b) We strip out the battery pack as seen in picture and discharge them individually. This is neccessary to clear any memory effects that have developed over the years.
c) We then charge the cells individually over on our special programmable on a preset charging regime, maintaining constant current and monitoring the temperature. This is neccessary to remove cells that are faulty from the pack, and to rebuild lost capacity.
d) After charging we test each cell for voltage attained and internal resistance of each cell string.
e) We stress test each cell with 100 amps current. This will ensure that each string will survive the load required by the electric motor..
f) All faulty cells are replaced. We take the car or “battery” for a test run to balanced and equalise all cells and to ensure that the battery pack is performing normally.
g) We can now rebuilt tubes by spot welding good cells. This solves the problem of finding good tubes.
h) Finally we install the Power Jockey to augment the HEV battery.
Warranty
Each battery after reconditioning is tested in a car to ensure that it is operating correctly and that it will perform under stress.
We offer a 1 year parts and labour and parts warranty on our work.
Our warranty is a return to base warranty – meaning getting the battery to us is at the owners cost.
