All these indicators came on while sitting parked, in "Park" with the AC running for about 5 minutes.

Just got home for a week's vacation and drove car about 7 miles before stopping. Stop lasted about 20 minutes. Came back outside to do paperwork.

2007 TCH, 169k miles. Recent (last month) "battery health check" printout from dealer scanner said it was ok.

I get that that little bit of idling may have discharged the battery, but it seems odd to do so in such a short period of time. And why the VSC?

Ideas?

I'll ask for the codes at the dealer tomorrow.

 

The warning lights on a Toyota hybrid tell you ONE thing: Read the codes. They have almost no diagnostic value and can mean any one of a dozen things. You get multiple codes because the systems interface with one another. ABS is related to regenerative braking. VSC is related to engine/power management - a battery failure causes issues with both of these systems since the car's propulsion system is having a problem.

It's almost certainly a hybrid battery failure. Older, higher mileage hybrids commonly fail after sitting for a week or more. A primary failure mode is one or more cells (there are 204 of them) exhibit excessive self-discharge that becomes problematic with any significant period of non-use. Your battery has likely been significantly deteriorated for some time, but you drove it regularly enough to not notice it.

They will likely tell you P0A80 and possibly P30XX along with several other B and C codes that are secondary.

A NEW hybrid battery at 60% SoC can only power the A/C for about 6 minutes with the engine off (A/C and blower on full blast). What likely happened is the troubled cell dropped out, and the car registered a voltage block error triggering a code and identifying a battery problem.

Camrys are VERY hard on their batteries. They wring as much out of them as they can before finally coding. I recently broke one down with only 144K miles on it. NONE of its cells had actually failed, but the capacity of 14 of the modules was too low (with a few ridiculously low ones). It was effectively destroyed:

https://www.greenhybrid.com/forums/f...results-31216/

IIRC, new batteries at the dealer tend to cost around $4500. Good luck! I hope I'm wrong!

 

Thank you for taking the time to provide this detailed and informative response.

I have seen grid charging systems that purport to discharge and balance a pack. Do they, and is that applicable to my situation?

From the post you included, it seems like you have not had much success rebuilding packs. Is load testing a viable way to identify a failed module?

(For $5k I'm willing to try most anything. Past projects have included the cooling system on my F250, and a Harley S&S carburetor...)

 

Yes, and yes, but it's VERY dependent on the overall condition of the battery. IMHO, the example I provided is typical of AZ packs. If you're not in AZ, your chances are probably better than what I typically see.

PLUS, it's best to wait to see if the dealer confirms a bad battery.

You can read accounts of folks replacing modules with ones purchased from eBay. What you frequently see is that this becomes a pretty regular thing - at least 1-2 times per year of whack-a-mole.

Once you've removed and installed a Camry pack on your own, you'll want to do it as little as possible. I do it for hire, and my price goes up every time I do it.

If you don't rely on the car and can afford to have it be down for 2+ weeks, then there's a good chance you can spend time rather than money.

Investing in an HA Prolong reconditioning package and a battery load tester (BT-100 from Amazon) would be advisable if you really want to dig in.

In short, it would be:

1. remove pack
2. replace any modules with obvious voltage problems.
3. conduct 3X HA reconditioning cycles.
4. wait 7 days
5. load test each module with 100A recording final voltage under load as reported by a separate meter
6. Replace any outliers

There are no guarantees with any of this. If your pack is as bad as the 3 I've seen (all AZ packs), then you're going to be replacing a VERY large portion of the pack - which may not be cost effective.


You could invest LESS and actually do some module level reconditioning, but that is even MORE time consuming, but you would get better data.

 

I reposted this in toyotanation.
thank you, S. keith.

 

And the code is....P0A80.

I had it in to the dealership a month ago and requested they scan the battery.
I got a little printout from the scan tool that said the battery was fine. They are currently doing some other work for me. I am going to request a credit of my fifteen bucks. If I'm feeling particularly pissy, I may ask them if they warrant their work.

 

Unfortunately, a scan of the battery tells you nothing. If the battery is working within spec, there are no codes. If there is a fault, there are codes. When the dealer checked your battery last month, they didn't get any codes, and it was almost certainly "fine."

It was likely severely deteriorated, but they can't see that without doing unapproved diagnostic work, i.e., using the tools and data in a way that is not authorized by Toyota. Furthermore, that enhanced testing isn't 100% reliable due to restrictions the car puts on the user's ability to manipulate the battery. Lastly, had the dealer suggested that your battery was showing signs of deterioration and should be replaced for $4500, I'm pretty sure you would have told them to go pound sound since your car was working fine at the time.

I'm sorry you're in this situation, but the dealer did not contribute to your battery failure, nor did they fail to diagnose it. They are just being a dealer (note that I won't set foot in a dealership due to my disdain for them and their practices - but in this case, I am defending them). The week long sit likely enabled the failure condition I described in my post above.

If the issue is that the battery would have been under warranty the last time they checked it, then you might be able to make an argument that they have some responsibility, but your year and mileage suggest that would not be the case, even in California.

At this point, you need to decide whether to spend a lot of time or a lot of money in getting it fixed.

Good luck!

Steve