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Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

Interesting. So battery does have "smart unit". But I did not know air conditioning is running off auxiliary 12V battery

A junction block, battery smart unit and DC/ DC converter are used. Integrated into the junction block are an SMRG (System Main Relay Ground), SMRB (System Main Relay Battery) and a current sensor. The battery smart unit monitors the HV battery. The DC/ DC converter supplies power to the auxiliary battery after decreasing the nominal voltage of DC 244.8 V supplied by the HV battery to DC 12 V. Power to the lights, audio system, air conditioning system (except the electric inverter compressor) and ECUs is supplied by the auxiliary battery. The battery smart unit, junction block, and DC/ DC converter are located in the battery front side carrier, which is in the same housing as the HV battery unit. This realizes a compact package.

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

Just tell them you think the traction motor battery is dying and the reason why. They should treat it as a warranty claim and test the battery at their cost. Ask them for the test results. I recall I posted a link which shows what they should look like.

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

7. Battery Control
The battery smart unit detects and transmits the HV battery condition signals (voltages, currents, and temperatures), which are used to determine charging or discharging values, to the THS ECU.
The battery smart unit also detects and transmits the cooling fan voltage signals which are necessary to effect cooling fan control, to the THS ECU.
A leak detection circuit is provided in the battery smart unit in order to detect any excessive current draw from the HV battery.

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

Stupid question, but something I think is worth considering. Has anyone ever charged their cell phone, but didn't fully charge it, it may show 2 or three bars but its actually not that full, just residual high voltage from just charging, maybe the same thing is going on here?

I think that people may put a good charge on their battery, slowing down and driving into the garage and possibly the indicator reads a fuller charge or voltage than the real charge is, and when the voltage stabilizes, its actually not full/full. I recharge AA batteries and just because it says they are full one moment, doesn't always mean they're full.

Just my 2cents and a possible explanation, but I would let the toyota techs check it out.

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

Okay, finally got my 07 TCH in to my local dealer for the 90,000 mile servicing.
I explained the HV battery drain problem, and even provided them a written summary, asking for a printout of the battery cell voltages - which they gave me.
They found no fault codes in the car, and the battery cell levels were all in a range from 16.34 to 16.44 volts. The cell resistances were from 0.023 to 0.025 ohms. They gave me a 4 page printout of all the monitored information in the car in addition to the battery cell levels and resistances.
I expressed my concerns about the HV battery levels, and they told me essentially what robsnyder20 just posted...essentially, the info display on the nav unit that shows the bars of HV charge is periodically updated and may not be completely accurate - it is an approximation. If you have, for example, 7 bars on the display and turn the car off, and leave it for 15 or 20 minutes, when you come back and start the car, the display may have updated to show the latest information which may be a lower battery level than what was displayed when you turned the car off.
Does that sound plausible?
I really liked this dealer, and although the 90,000 mile servicing included a LOT - oil, hybrid transaxle fluid change, cooling system flush, air filter, passenger compartment air filter, PCV valve, fuel induction service....and cost me $478, I am glad I had it done. They threw in a free car wash as well, which I appreciated.
In addition to giving me a complete printout of the monitored car information, they also gave me a printout of all the Toyota service that has been done on this car, which is very good to know seeing as how I purchased this car used.

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AmigaOneFan (Post 245331)

the info display on the nav unit that shows the bars of HV charge is periodically updated and may not be completely accurate - it is an approximation. If you have, for example, 7 bars on the display and turn the car off, and leave it for 15 or 20 minutes, when you come back and start the car, the display may have updated to show the latest information which may be a lower battery level than what was displayed when you turned the car off.
Does that sound plausible?

The readings they gave you is good news about the battery. It sounds like it is basically healthy. However, it should not discharge significantly when turned off. Yes, the bars will be an approximation. If the next bar triggers at say 220 volts and it is 220.1 when you turn it off, then it would not be surprising to see it down one bar when you next turn it on. In other words it is now under 220 volts but could be 219.9 volts. That is just the crudeness of the bar display showing, and not a problem at all. But, if it is down two bars that is still a bit more concerning. Your battery could be "good" but draining. I think it was hashed to death earlier in the thread, but an external drain is unlikely. It is more likely internal to the battery, but now unlikely due to the good readings they got.

I will try to remember to check mine for bars when I shut it off and compare it to the next start. I never seem to remember...

On the other servicing "oil, hybrid transaxle fluid change, cooling system flush, air filter, passenger compartment air filter, PCV valve, fuel induction service....and cost me $478", there are some options to reduce the cost a bit.

You can do your own oil and filter, but if you are not into doing that, the dealer can be a good choice. It costs $50 here including Toyota 0W-20 synthetic oil. I don't think the cooling system really needs a flush. It does need to be periodically (check the manual) drained and refilled. The engine system is easy to do yourself. The inverter cooling system may be best left to the dealer. The air filter change is easy and can be done yourself in 5-10 minutes. The passenger filter is almost as easy. The biggest job is emptying the glove compartment. It is behind a door at the back of the glove compartment. PVC filter, not sure on the hybrid. It can be an easy job, or somewhat difficult depending on where it is. Fuel system service can be a bit of a scam. You can clean it just as well by using a fuel additive periodically that has PEA in it (ideally around 50%). One example is the Gumout Regane Complete Fuel System Cleaner. It costs about $10.

In short you can trim the service costs if you selectively do the easy stuff yourself. Also always check your owner manual or on line to see what really needs to be done. Dealers can be lets say "liberal" with service when you are paying...

Again, I will try to remember to check bars before and after it sits for a while, and report back. Hopefully others can do too. But, for sure one bar loss is not worth worrying about -- just noise.

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

With mobil one 0W-20 oil costing about $6.59 a quart (@4.6 qts) and add in a estimated $6 oil filter. Then the oil change doing it yourself would still cost $40. For $10 more you don't even get you hands dirty.

I did my own oil change at 5000 miles just to see how the new black plastic filter housing worked with the insert element filter. I like this new oem filter element and the way it's designed.

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

Well, now two months after taking my 2007 Camry Hybrid for servicing and seeing the hybrid battery drain problem perhaps a couple more times, I experienced a new problem.
I went to put some gas in, my fuel light had gone on. I waited for about 4 minutes in line while other cars fueled up. The onboard display showed me green bars - only one away from the top. Turned off the car and pressed the fuel door button. nothing. Tried again. nothing. Hmmm. Tried a third time, the fuel door popped open.
I thought, oh no, the electronic switch for the fuel door must be going bad! I wonder how much THAT will cost to fix!
Fueled up - took about 3 minutes. Put on the fuel cap, closed the fuel door, got in the car, started the car. The display showed 2 bars - purple. Uh oh! In less than 5 minutes the hybrid battery had drained from almost full to nearly empty according to the display! Thats while the engine was turned off!
But it gets worse.
I began to drive - usually I like to drive slowly after I fuel up to get the mileage per gallon back up using the hybrid system battery. This time the hybrid battery was nearly dead so the engine ran the whole time.....the battery remained at 2 bars for about 4 minutes, or 3 miles - with the engine running and the display showing the battery charging! It took over 4 minutes of driving on gas engine alone for the hybrid battery to gain one bar of charge! And during this time I also slowed several times using the brakes which should have provided additional hybrid charging.
After watching the battery not charge at all for a few minutes I thought for sure the hybrid battery was dead! Then when it finally gained one bar of charge after 4 or more minutes of driving, I was bewildered. I think I caught the battery in the act of draining and was actually driving the car after fueling up while the draining problem was still occurring.
It has not acted funny since (that was 2 days ago, Friday December 28th).
From what I was told at the last dealer visit I had, if I bring the car in for a problem and they cannot find a problem, even if it is "covered under warranty", then I get charged for their time ($80/hour) unless they discover a problem. I realize this is to keep people from bringing in cars all the time for every little issue they imagine is wrong. But this intermittent hybrid battery discharge problem only happens about twice a month. The chances of them catching it are incredibly unlikely. As I know from bringing it to the dealer, the battery will check out fine unless the drain is currently happening. It may be the battery, or something external - a short of some sort perhaps, on the hybrid battery. whatever it is they were not able to find a problem.
The car now has about 98,300 miles on it. Very close to the hybrid warranty expiration. If the battery doesn't completely die before 100,000 miles, I am afraid I will end up buying a new battery for this car because it is not failing often enough to be observed by the dealer.
any ideas?

Thanks,

Scott

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

It would seem there may be a possibility the state of charge indication is defective. Considering what is at risk you might want to consider the purchase of a Scangauge tool. It can display and possibly record data, that you could use to justify to the service dept that there is something wrong. I don't know much about how they work, or the features of the various models. RBURT07 is one contributer here that I know has experience. Perhaps he could help with what variables it could track that could be of use. There also seems to be an Xgauge from the same company that appears to display some Toyota specific hybrid variables -- at least for the Prius. See link below. Again perhaps RBURT07 could clarify what you can do and can't do. It seems to me you would need to be able to record the data so you can show it to the dealer.

XGauge

Re: 2007 Camry Hrybrid battery draining?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AmigaOneFan (Post 246120)

Well, now two months after taking my 2007 Camry Hybrid for servicing and seeing the hybrid battery drain problem perhaps a couple more times, I experienced a new problem.
I went to put some gas in, my fuel light had gone on. I waited for about 4 minutes in line while other cars fueled up. The on-board display showed me green bars - only one away from the top. Turned off the car and pressed the fuel door button. nothing. Tried again. nothing. Hmmm. Tried a third time, the fuel door popped open.
I thought, oh no, the electronic switch for the fuel door must be going bad! I wonder how much THAT will cost to fix!
Fueled up - took about 3 minutes. Put on the fuel cap, closed the fuel door, got in the car, started the car. The display showed 2 bars - purple. Uh oh! In less than 5 minutes the hybrid battery had drained from almost full to nearly empty according to the display! That's while the engine was turned off!
But it gets worse.
I began to drive - usually I like to drive slowly after I fuel up to get the mileage per gallon back up using the hybrid system battery. This time the hybrid battery was nearly dead so the engine ran the whole time.....the battery remained at 2 bars for about 4 minutes, or 3 miles - with the engine running and the display showing the battery charging! It took over 4 minutes of driving on gas engine alone for the hybrid battery to gain one bar of charge! And during this time I also slowed several times using the brakes which should have provided additional hybrid charging.
After watching the battery not charge at all for a few minutes I thought for sure the hybrid battery was dead! Then when it finally gained one bar of charge after 4 or more minutes of driving, I was bewildered. I think I caught the battery in the act of draining and was actually driving the car after fueling up while the draining problem was still occurring.
It has not acted funny since (that was 2 days ago, Friday December 28th).
From what I was told at the last dealer visit I had, if I bring the car in for a problem and they cannot find a problem, even if it is "covered under warranty", then I get charged for their time ($80/hour) unless they discover a problem. I realize this is to keep people from bringing in cars all the time for every little issue they imagine is wrong. But this intermittent hybrid battery discharge problem only happens about twice a month. The chances of them catching it are incredibly unlikely. As I know from bringing it to the dealer, the battery will check out fine unless the drain is currently happening. It may be the battery, or something external - a short of some sort perhaps, on the hybrid battery. whatever it is they were not able to find a problem.
The car now has about 98,300 miles on it. Very close to the hybrid warranty expiration. If the battery doesn't completely die before 100,000 miles, I am afraid I will end up buying a new battery for this car because it is not failing often enough to be observed by the dealer.
any ideas?

Thanks,

Scott

Thanks Ron, I can only add what I know. First make sure when you shut off your car, be sure the clock on the dash is black, no digits shown. The only things I can think would be the rear defroster or heated seat left on but that uses the 12 volt battery.

I have drained my '07 TCH battery down to about 10% below the 20% limit that the ECU programming is set for. I did this on a 16 mile coast in neutral. I did allow the traction battery to charge up enough before starting the coast. The thing to get across here is it took maybe 10 minutes of driving to get it to charge one mark above the 20%. In fact as I drove when I went back to drive to start the engine which was at 45 mph. The display showed the traction battery charge just sat their for the longest then finally started to charge.

I often wondered if it might be a good thing every 6 months to clean out that area below the 20% so it would have a fresh charge. I know for a fact the guys with the fast model race cars drain their 30 or so amp batteries down to 0 to get a full charge plus a boost charge on top of that. I never raced the cars only model planes including the electric ones. So I don't know how long their nickle hydride battery packs lasted.

Looks to me like the toyota dealer could unplug your traction battery then plug a inline amp meter to see if their was any drain when everything is shut off.

If it were left up to me being toyota, I would build a digital readout held by a tech sitting in the passenger seat. It would be connected up into the trunk traction battery circuit, then the wires ran though the rear seat fold down. Another tech doing the driving as the other tech took the readings on battery drain in EV, charging amps while the engine is running and battery drain when everything is shut off. This is a question I forget to ask the hybrid tech here at our local dealership. I did see him one time testing a traction battery on a Prius that had about 200,000 miles on it. He did this with it sitting in the shop and the engine was idling. I think it was the first prius sold here in town. I remember it needed a traction battery replacement due to a few weak cells when it had over 245,000 miles on it.

Your mention of the quick battery drain looking at the bar display. Try comparing that display to your battery, wheel, engine display on your MFD display in the instrument panel. Actually I usually use that instead readout all the time as it's easier for me to glance down rather than turn my head to see the navigation screen.

Scott, let us know how it goes as all here would be interested