Hey I appreciate this info! These were so unpopular that it is hard to find these kinda of details.
This is what I assumed too, the HV battery is bad enough to cause weird issues and throw codes once in a while, but good enough to start the truck as from my understanding the HV battery powers the transmission motor that starts the truck.
Currently auto stop doesn't work, it does the weird bucking when going slow at stop sign traffic. Seems to brake the same and accelerate as slowly as it used to when I had it last in 2016. It has a very hard time starting, is that because the HV battery is too weak to spin the engine fast enough? Took me 10 tries to start yesterday and had to give some gas. Again I would assume cold transmission fluid would add resistance and make it even harder?
So this thing likely just needs the HV battery replaced, but my SIL has spent enough on it since 2016 and just wants to get rid of it. This will be good info to pass onto whoever buys it
yeah. most like the battery is bad.. like really bad and will leave it dead in the water at some point. and it's a bit of a hassle to jump start them. you need a high end scanner to put it into a mode that will charge the the hybrid battery thru the 12v battery with a 20plus amp charger on it. that is if the hybrid battery will even take a charge at that point.
you're in Canada, so I've heard shipping is a hassle so it's better you use a Canada based company. look for the ones that replace prius batteries. it's basically the same thing. most people here use a company called greenbean. cheap referbed batteries. they will come to your house and swap it out. it used to be about 2500$ with a warranty. but prices are crazy. so I don't know that is now. there's also a DIY using wrecked prius cells off ebay, guys do that for cheap too. that takes some time thou. you gotta buy 2 packs, cycle them all on a load bank and charger a few times and then pick 40 of the best cells, balance charge then and then install. but its a hassle unless you're into that sort of electrical stuff as a hobby.
I went with the new diy cells routh from Nexcell. they are drop in replacement using lifepo4 cells instead of the old school tech. but there is come creditable arguments about if it's the best bang for the buck and untested longevity, so as much as I'm enjoying mine and see no sign of decline, I always hesitate to recommend them unless you're interested in that sort of thing and have spare cash.
sadly that's basically how these all ended up in the junkyard.. zero dealer level training even when new, so they couldn't fix them in a timely manner, all the same afm lifter issues of the non hybrid ones and they just bleed people dry trying to keep them running. when truth is the hybrid battery didn't make it the full 8 year battery warranty, gm just loosened the parameters which set off the code so they didn't have to cover it.
interesting tech, but ahead of the time battery chemistry by a good 20 years. we are just now seeing Toyota hybrid trucks and stuff for a reason.
I'm not really a fan of all electric cars but I do think hybrids and especially plug in hybrids make for useful city cars as long as they are easily repaired.
if you haven't seen it, there's a thread in the hybrid section about using the 5$ torque app and a 20$ dongle to read the cell voltages and see for yourself if it's bad. Basically the voltage should all be within 0.02 volts while under a load, when I changed mine out most would be 17v and a few drop. to 8v while trying to. move the truck and crank coming out of auto stop. long dead. it's got the pids for a few other things to monitor too, like battery Temps, amps into and out of the battery. cooling fan speed any useful still.
also there's a section for these trucks on a mainly prius board that is very useful too. can log the data and one guy's will graph it all out and stuff.
i know it's had to come off the money for it thou, since unless you've done all the afm fixes and other stuff. it's a bit of a time bomb anyways. probably due for a lot of the standard trucks mechanical repairs by now too.
