Free-Wheeling/coasting- Bad For The Engine?

[cbcdesign]

An interesting project, the Engineer kit although it looks like some quality control issues on the BMS and cells need to be addressed.

Its not for me though. I am leasing my Prius from May onwards and I don't think Toyota would approve if I modified the car, lol!

[ms15342]

An interesting project, the Engineer kit although it looks like some quality control issues on the BMS and cells need to be addressed.

Its not for me though. I am leasing my Prius from May onwards and I don't think Toyota would approve if I modified the car, lol!

I have an enginer 4kw kit in my 2008 gen2 and your observation regarding the bms is dead right.

Mine was installed by a Califorian auto electrician in the Scottish borders in December 2009 and fortunately he has a great deal of knowledge about lithium batteries and was able to "wise me up" about how to treat and look after them which helped greatly in the weeks after install. The initial bms was 4 chargery systems used by model aircraft fliers and in my case and most others was cooking one half of the batteries whilst not charging the other half of the pack, I knew this only because of what my installer had taught me to look for.

Many Battery packs had to be replaced and a new wiring method was recommended (buddy pairs) so I took my car back up to Scotland to have this done and to await the new bms which after 4 months still had not arrived so we found our own bms (mini bms) from Florida and have never looked back since, MPG before in winter was high 30's and summer early 50's. Since fitting the enginer kit my MPG is now mid 50's in winter and high 70's in summer so the system does what they said but this is with a bms that keeps the Battery pack in control and the the Enginers do not which is the cause of the vast majority of the problems.

My kit is one of the very first and they have got much better since but not I fear with regard to the bms. I have my servicing done at our local Toyota dealers and they are quite ok about it after I took the time to show them what it does and how it does nothing to "interfere with prius systems" as it simply acts as a reserve for the prius i.e. to extend eletric or blended range

regards to all

PS grumpy did you get my reply the other day?

[Grumpy Cabbie]

From the PriusChat forum? Yes I did - twice in fact. Was gonna send a reply on my days off.

I think the quality control is a big issue with Enginer and probably not for me for that reason. Might wait and see what the official version is all about.

[Dave R.]

Just going back to the start of the thread.... when are you likely to need N....

When you are putting your car through a car-wash that pulls the car through. The Prius has to be switched on, otherwise P locks the gearbox & the car can't be moved, but you don't want to be in "D". I guess the same applies if you need to be towed & don't have a tow-truck with a hoist to lift the front wheels off the deck.

Re going down hills, I'm with the "go against everything you have been taught in the past, and ride the brakes gently to maximise regeneration". I'd go for keeping to about half the regenerative bar in the power meter.

[capnbirdseye]

Just going back to the start of the thread.... when are you likely to need N....

When you are putting your car through a car-wash that pulls the car through. The Prius has to be switched on, otherwise P locks the gearbox & the car can't be moved, but you don't want to be in "D". I guess the same applies if you need to be towed & don't have a tow-truck with a hoist to lift the front wheels off the deck.

Re going down hills, I'm with the "go against everything you have been taught in the past, and ride the brakes gently to maximise regeneration". I'd go for keeping to about half the regenerative bar in the power meter.

As far as I know the Prius can't be towed with the front wheels on the ground under any circumstances.

Can't honestly see the point of riding the brakes on a really steep hill when 'B' mode will do the job for you and save your pads will still regenerate, The first couple of times I came to a steep hill with my Prius I found that if there's a vehicle in front using low gear then lightly touching the brakes every few seconds didn't slow me enough make me keep my distance so I ended up stabbing the brake on and off all the way down.

Then when trying B mode for the first time I found it will keep pace perfectly with other vehicles and still charge the Battery. ( reading on some write ups that B mode doesn't charge the Battery is completely wrong as all 4 times I used it so far the Battery showed green before I reached the bottom of the hill) (Gen2)

[Jan&tone]

Capn... You are correct, in B the Battery is charged.... On the gen2.

On the gen3 the Battery is not charged as much in B, only when braking. Some charge is put in on B, but not as much as on the gen2.