PHEV... Hybrid drivetrain has stopped (working)

[Nick72]

Nice. New one and first issue of note.

Car immobile. Switched off and on and sane message. Tried switching gears. No effect. Stuck in the middle of the road in a busy car park. !

Anyone else had this issue?

[Roger_N]

Not much in the way of comfort but it could have been a lot worse, stuck in the middle of a busy road junction which would have been extremely dangerous.

[Nick72]

Indeed. Don't know cause. Left it off for a few minutes and all working fine again. Worst kind of problem. Intermittent, irreproducible.

[Roger_N]

5 minutes ago, Nick72 said:

Indeed. Don't know cause. Left it off for a few minutes and all working fine again. Worst kind of problem. Intermittent, irreproducible.

I don’t know how you feel but that would leave me felling uncomfortable.

[philip42h]

Give us the context - how exactly did you get yourself and the car into this predicament?

What exactly was the message?

And I assume that you will report this to your dealer / service agent ...

[ernieb]

3 hours ago, Nick72 said:

Nice. New one and first issue of note.

Car immobile. Switched off and on and sane message. Tried switching gears. No effect. Stuck in the middle of the road in a busy car park. !

Anyone else had this issue?

Never had anything like it myself. Sounds like you should at least log it with the dealer. It does leave you feeling uncomfortable.

[TonyHSD]

Drained 12v Battery perhaps? 
What messages came up on the dash exactly? Any pictures of those? There are many possibilities to why this happened. 

[ernieb]

2 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Drained 12v battery perhaps? 
What messages came up on the dash exactly? Any pictures of those? There are many possibilities to why this happened. 

Good call, or maybe faulty, loose connection.

[Nick72]

5 hours ago, philip42h said:

Give us the context - how exactly did you get yourself and the car into this predicament?

What exactly was the message?

And I assume that you will report this to your dealer / service agent ...

Had been out on a drive for about 3 miles. Parked it on supermarket car park. Went to shop and an errand. Came back after 45 minutes. Got into the car. Started up as normal. No error messages. Pulled out of parking space, reversed up because I couldn't pull out fully, put into drive pulled forward and the car stopped. No power. Message on the mid as I described in the title. Tried putting back to park then back into drive, reverse etc. Same message persisted. Put into park, switched off. Switched back on again, put into drive and same message came up. Repeated this process and same message. Switched off and got out to explain to other car drivers trapped by my car that Toyota's reliability has just taken a hit. Chatted. Then got back in the car, switched on, and everything fine. Drove home parked up. Haven't tried it since. Busy work diary WFH this afternoon.

 

 

[Nick72]

1 hour ago, TonyHSD said:

Drained 12v battery perhaps? 
What messages came up on the dash exactly? Any pictures of those? There are many possibilities to why this happened. 

Message as per title. That was it on the MID. Nothing else. No warning lights. Just that message and no drive power. Zero. 

 

No pics since I was blocking the road. So wasn't going to start faffing with my phone. Immediate priority was fix what was wrong and get out of the way.

 

[Nick72]

I'll take it for a run out this weekend to see what happens. Could be low 12V related so I'll check that before I go out on a run. Driven probably only a 30 mile run 2 weeks ago followed by about 9 off 1.5 mile runs. Could be not enough charge opportunity. But it has been plugged into the home charger a lot (I tend to leave it plugged in just in case I want to precondition the car without affecting either battery) and I did think the think the 12v Battery was charged as part of that process as well as it being charged when the car is switched on (charged off the traction Battery via Inverter).

 

Weird and worrying.

[forkingabout]

The cars computer should have logged something for the event - get it seen by a Toyota main dealer ASAP so they can investigate the issue. 

[nlee]

According to the digital manual, there are two similar messages but not exactly as per the title. There's Hybrid System Malfunction, which is normally accompanied by another message, or Hybrid System Stopped. Can you recall if it was either one of these or definitely mentioned the drivetrain?

Rather unhelpfully, all it says is for Malfunction, contact the dealer straight away, for Stopped, you may have run out of fuel, refuel the vehicle!

There was another post about the Hybrid Malfunction message back around January. Can't remember who it was but I seem to remember it happened to them on the outside lane of the motorway.

[philip42h]

... and I'd have expected both to be accompanied by the 'broken engine' warning light ...

I can't believe it to be 12v Battery related else you wouldn't have got into Ready mode.

 

Could you be low on fuel?

[Roger_N]

19 minutes ago, nlee said:

According to the digital manual, there are two similar messages but not exactly as per the title. There's Hybrid System Malfunction, which is normally accompanied by another message, or Hybrid System Stopped. Can you recall if it was either one of these or definitely mentioned the drivetrain?

Rather unhelpfully, all it says is for Malfunction, contact the dealer straight away, for Stopped, you may have run out of fuel, refuel the vehicle!

There was another post about the Hybrid Malfunction message back around January. Can't remember who it was but I seem to remember it happened to them on the outside lane of the motorway.

This one?

 

[TonyHSD]

Diagnostic run by the dealer would be my first step. The stored trouble codes will point towards direction where and what to look for. Likely it will be a dealer job anyway since it’s new car. If it was “ hybrid system malfunction “ - this can be as a result of many things like issues with engine, transmission, hybrid Battery, inverter or simply software glitch. Low voltage in 12v Battery can also cause something similar, but I have no experience with rav4 and especially phev, and can’t help any further. Most of the cars after an issue need 4-5 separate attempts to start and they will come off limp home or protection mode and eventually become drivable again unless physically broken. 👍

[ernieb]

Nick, the 12v Battery is not charged or conditioned during the traction Battery charge. I’m not sure why as it seems logical especially during the winter months but I guess there must be some kind of logic behind it.

Call the dealer/pop in for a diagnostic check.

Check the 12v Battery and put it on a trickle charger or solar charger?

[Cyker]

We had a few people with early Yaris Mk4's have a very similar problem to this.

I can't remember what the outcome of the dealer investigation was, but IIRC at least one person found their 12v Battery terminals hadn't been tightened properly (I think they could be slid off just by tugging on them), and tightening them up seemed to fix it for them?

I seem to remember another one was a failure of the coupling plate thing that links the engine to MG1.

[Nick72]

2 hours ago, nlee said:

According to the digital manual, there are two similar messages but not exactly as per the title. There's Hybrid System Malfunction, which is normally accompanied by another message, or Hybrid System Stopped. Can you recall if it was either one of these or definitely mentioned the drivetrain?

Rather unhelpfully, all it says is for Malfunction, contact the dealer straight away, for Stopped, you may have run out of fuel, refuel the vehicle!

There was another post about the Hybrid Malfunction message back around January. Can't remember who it was but I seem to remember it happened to them on the outside lane of the motorway.

Neither. It said "The hybrid drivetrain has stopped" I can't recall if it ended with "working" but definitely the former.

[Nick72]

2 hours ago, philip42h said:

... and I'd have expected both to be accompanied by the 'broken engine' warning light ...

I can't believe it to be 12v battery related else you wouldn't have got into Ready mode.

 

Could you be low on fuel?

Full tank of fuel and 75pc full traction Battery.

[Nick72]

2 hours ago, Roger_N said:

This one?

 

Yeh didn't say that though. Said "The hybrid drivetrain has stopped"

[roadster-rav]

13 hours ago, ernieb said:

Nick, the 12v battery is not charged or conditioned during the traction battery charge. I’m not sure why as it seems logical especially during the winter months but I guess there must be some kind of logic behind it.

Are you certain about that? My plug in Hyundai has a massive 68AH 12 volt Battery and it is definitely charged while the main traction Battery is on charge. I measured it once at around 8 amps with a non-contact ammeter. My RAV4 wasn't a plug in and as you know its a relatively small 12 volt Battery which needed regular charging. I wouldn't be surprised if Hyundai use the 12 volt system to stretch the electric range a little bit as their power train is an amalgam of hardware found on other variants and is visually  a bit of a dogs breakfast!

[philip42h]

1 hour ago, roadster-rav said:

Are you certain about that? 

Yes

The 12v Battery in a RAV4 charges from the traction Battery while the car is in Ready mode. The PHEV is not in Ready mode while the traction Battery is being charged.

It may or may not make sense but that is how it is ...

[Roger_N]

21 minutes ago, philip42h said:

Yes

The 12v battery in a RAV4 charges from the traction battery while the car is in Ready mode. The PHEV is not in Ready mode while the traction battery is being charged.

It may or may not make sense but that is how it is ...

Philip

 

The thing that strikes me about this, is it means the 12v Battery is only charged up until you start moving and when stationary without the engine running at traffic lights or in a queue of traffic. If this is right it’s no wonder the Battery runs low a lot.

[philip42h]

2 minutes ago, Roger_N said:

Philip

 

The thing that strikes me about this, is it means the 12v battery is only charged up until you start moving and when stationary without the engine running at traffic lights or in a queue of traffic. If this is right it’s no wonder the battery runs low a lot.

No, no, no ... the car remains in Ready mode all the time it is running - the engine won't run (and indeed you can't get out of Park) unless the car is in Ready mode. So, the car goes into Ready mode when the key is present, the driver has foot on the brake pedal and presses the Start/Stop button. The car remains in Ready mode until the driver presses the Start/Stop button again (or something really untoward happens!).