Never do THIS to your Toyota Hybrid New edition!

hello and welcome to the car care not channel in today's video we're gonna be going over some things you should never do to your toyota hybrid through my long career as a toyota master diagnostic technician and a hybrid specialist these are some things that people do to their cars without knowing the harm or the problems they could cause in this video we're not only gonna say what not to do but we're gonna say why you shouldn't do that but before we get started if you're new to the channel welcome consider subscribing to the channel check out some of my other videos if you are a return subscriber thank you so much for watching another one of my videos and without further ado let's dig right into it [Music] number one welcome to the back seat of a toyota hybrid so this is the place where our kids sit groceries giant cases of water and occasionally a bag or two of ice ladies and gentlemen you should never spill water or large amount of water over the back seat and i could explain to you why but i'd rather show you why so let me show you oops wrong button much better well ladies and gentlemen this is the hybrid battery the high voltage hybrid battery if you spill water over the back seat enough quantity of water or especially the common one that we've seen is people forget a bag of ice in a hot summer day that melts that creates a lot of water that penetrates the seed goes underneath it into the battery folks these batteries are not waterproof water resistance yes they do have covers but these covers are mainly for contact not really for water intrusion water could get inside of these things if you spill enough water if you spill a little bit it's not gonna it's probably gonna be stopped by the seed cushion but you spill enough water guess what it's gonna go inside and you're not gonna have problems right away because the water will make its way underneath the battery and it's going to sit there but then as it sits as things start corroding the problems start so folks now you know don't spill large amounts of water on the backseat and if you do look accidents happen if you do you got to contact a hybrid specialist they got to take a look make sure there's no water that made it inside the battery or around it and if there is it needs to be dried as soon as possible to avoid future problems now one advice on this as well it is helpful to know where is the location of your hybrid battery in your toyota hybrid not because you're going to work on it not because i actually advise you to go around it because it could be dangerous but it is good to know so you can avoid water spills over these batteries if you're not sure where your toyota hybrid battery is you're welcome to leave a comment of your year and model toyota hybrid and i'll let you know where it is number two refuel your hybrid within 30 minutes of opening the fuel door and people will wonder wait a minute how could i open the field door and then wait more than 30 minutes to refill i mean i'm just going to open it come fill it up and we're done well here's a scenario where this would happen you're on a road trip you pull over a gas station the kids are screaming and we're very tired we need to run to the restroom you open the fuel door and then you decide no let me go in the rest area first eat just a little nice restaurant there in the middle of nowhere let's go have a meal and guess what you forgot your fuel door open you stayed there you had your meal life is good you come back to fill up the car guess what's going to happen you already passed the 30 minutes you're gonna put the pump turn it on and you're going to be greeted by a gasoline shower because the car will just overflow all over you and you're going to be what just happened that drew in my road trip folks here's why that happens did you notice that that most hybrids they don't have a release a manual release lever for the fuel door they have a button and then when you push that button it takes it a second or two to open the door well the reason for that is has to do with the overly complicated evaporative emission system a very complicated system which i will make very short in a matter of seconds for you gasoline creates vapors vapors harm the environment all cars made after 1996 obd2 compliant in the united states have a system called the evaporative emission system that captures these vapors in a little fancy device called the canon charcoal canister then when the engine is running it's going to send those vapors to get burned with the engine and life is good now we don't have fumes all over the place like we did before 1996. hybrids because the engine doesn't run all the time there's not enough demand for these vapors to be burned so that little charcoal canister little container that holds the vapor it doesn't have enough room to keep those vapors longer because the engine is not running all the time so what they had to do is separate the fuel tank from that little container there's a small valve that close seals the fuel tank that is not available now they're non-hybrid toyotas so the reason you need to do your refueling within 30 minutes is because that valve opens that's why there's a delay when you push the button in the door because that valve needs to open allowing the fuel to push the vapor into the canister in a very complicated fashion which we're not going to bore you with that but folks you do not want to forget this door open over 30 minutes because seriously the gas will just cover you it's going to overflow immediately it's going to make a mess by the way there is a warning inside the door telling you just that but i'm with you most people don't notice we just fill up the car be on our way if that does happen to you and you did leave it for 30 minutes push the button again it's the valves open again and now you're ready to refuel number three don't use your b mode all day long folks will ask well what is b mode like i've never heard this i own a toyota hybrid i don't know what that is well i have a video detailing this in f in details how it works and what it is but let me summarize it for this one so your average automatic transmission conventional non-hybrid after you get past the d or drive you have one two three four and that's used for going down a hill you can downshift the car and you'll use engine braking to slow down the car so you wouldn't fade your brakes while in hybrids that was a problem because there's no physical gears to do that so they used b mode b mode could either be a shift position in some of the older models in the newer models it simulates a manual transmission or a sequential automatic transmission where you have a plus and minus you can shift through gears folks there are no gears and hybrids it's all computer software doing this it is essentially the same as b mode or brake mode that's what the b stands for but it gives you varied levels of it when you go plus and minus on your transmission so use b mode when needed when you're going down a hill on on highway speeds and you really feel like you're going to fade your brakes then use it absolutely that's its intended purpose but i see people driving in me mode all day long that is unnecessary stress on the hybrid system all that's going on is there's no engine braking there's no such thing a hybrid system will utilize one of the motors to rev up the engine artificially if the engine is not running it's just going to use it as dead weight well you have this engine rubbing so high all day long it's not like a manu a manual transmission when you downshift or even an automatic transmission when you physically downshift a gear this is completely different so don't be using that mode all day long because you're going to stress that engine you're going to stress the hybrid system unnecessarily use it for its intended purpose and you would not have any issues with it number four don't overfill your toyota hybrid engine with oil now that goes for every gasoline engine of course don't overfill them but hybrids seem to be affected so much when you overfill them with oil that oil even by a little bit tends to end up in the intake manifold and the reason for that is the way the hybrid engine starts in a conventional non-hybrid you got a little starter on a good day with a perfect battery that starter will spin the engine at 200 300 rpm on a good day on hybrids because the mighty powerful hybrid motor turns this engine it's going to spin it at idle speed so it's going to immediately spin it at 800 to 1200 rpm from zero to that it has instant torque and it spins it that fast so that sudden spinning from the engine is not moving to all of a sudden going to 800 1200 rpm that tends to have an effect of pulling oil through the pcb system into the intake now normally that does not happen but when you overfill these engines there is a tendency of of that happening and this is not something that happens once it happens over time and the more you leave this car overfilled the more it's going to do that when that oil ends up in the intake you're going to get cold start problem misfires all kinds of just clogging of everything and all the problems start from something as simple as slightly overfilled engines so i want you guys to think of this i'd rather you slightly under fill this these engines on toyota hybrids then definitely overfill them and the common theme that i see is that people out of neglect or not caring they overfill these engines it's because most people will change their oil add oil when it's cold the engine is cold let's say you're doing this yourself in your garage car set overnight you woke up that one saturday morning you're doing your oil change yourself which i highly encourage you to but then you drain the oil you put you put new oil you put the capacity you pull the dipstick it's not full and it's like okay what happened that's of course after you started the car and primed the oil filter it's not too full mark well people keep adding oil until it's too full but remember your engine is cold the oil you're adding is also cold when you start this engine and start driving that oil is going to warm up well what happens to fluid when it warms up it expands so now all of a sudden your oil level is very high folks you never want to correct your oil level when the engine is cold because you're gonna get an incorrect level engines they don't run all the time when they're cold they run all the time when they're hot so you want to do your oil change and actually leave the oil level halfway on the dipstick between the two dots as you can see in this picture that way that's an estimation when your engine is fully warmed up toyota wants you to drive the car to its complete warm-up shut it off for five minutes then check the oil level that's the official procedure the five-minute wait you can probably cut that to one minute and still get a pretty accurate reading but it is essential that when you add oil to these engines and they're cold that you let it halfway that way when the engine is warmed up and that oil is nice and hot we're not overfilled because that's how you start accumulating oil in the intake and now we have problem one note about this this seems to affect the older some the semi-older hybrids the newer ones like this the newest generation of hybrids they seem to have made a better pcv system it has an oil separator where it takes care of that issue or lessens it but push the envelope here with overfilling your oil and that fancy oil separator is not going to do much and you're going to end up with oil and intake and that's not good number five are you still watching there don't jump start another car from your hybrid now the reason for that is hybrids don't exactly have an alternator they have a very fancy dc to dc converter that takes that very high voltage from the high voltage battery and steps it down to 12 volt 14 volts to charge your small little battery the 12 volt battery well that is not exactly designed to say jump start a 55 chevy so don't go being the good samaritan with your hybrid and offering to use jumper cables to jump start another car and my favorite one is that i hear and see and this comes from my viewers as well i made sure that the engine is running and it's revving up folks this does nothing this is true with regular gasoline engines with regular alternators you know you raise the rpm alternator spins faster and it's able to carry that load in hybrids there is no such thing there is no alternator all that is going on is there's a little device there is basically a small very small charger charging the 12 volt battery that 12 volt battery is not rated to to have a starter in its circuit starters cause the biggest draw on any car's electrical system when there's no starter we don't need that huge battery that's why most hybrids they have a tiny little battery and that's about it that's all they need that's why they're always dying and dying people complain why are they so small what's going on here folks that's just the way it is with these things you do not want to jump start another car from your hybrid the only exception is if you are jump starting another toyota hybrid then it's fine because all that battery does is power up a few computers turn on a few relays to power up the hybrid system and then it takes over from there so you can yes you can jump another toyota hybrid from this but don't use your toyota hybrid to jumpstart a conventional gasoline engine car with a starter because you're gonna cause enormous strain on the dc to dc converter and that is part of a very very expensive part called the hybrid inverter with converter assembly you do not want to damage that because that's going to be a very bad day for you because these things are very expensive and the last thing you want to do is damage your car because you're trying to be a good samaritan somebody else and as a bonus for you for sticking this long for this video which i really appreciate let me show you how you actually can jump start your own hybrid not give jump starts to other people now most hybrids except 2016 and up fourth generation prius they have their batteries all the way in the back that's just the way they are that's by design because you have a you have a new component that takes more space in the new prius the fourth generation prius they made space and they were able to put the battery under the hood but everything else batteries in the back either in the trunk or in the hatch area or in the case of this one in the hatch area as well if you want to jump start a hybrid there is a terminal in the fuse block under the hood you basically pop that little red cover terminal is right there that's your positive and these two studs and nuts these are for the strut this is where you want to connect your negative terminal that is the way to jump start these cars however do not ever use those points to jump start another toyota hybrid like i said you can you can help another toyota hybrid owner by giving them a jump start but never use these always go with the battery but if you're jump starting your own car you're welcome to use those points they are there because most of these batteries are somewhat covered up and they're not easily accessible in some models so that's why they put these these jump points for ease now you know and one last thing before i let you go there never jump start your hybrid backwards now duh this sounds very obvious but trust me when it's 15 degrees outside your battery died and you have kids screaming in the car and it's very cold and you really gotta go that's the perfect time that's the perfect storm to get you to not notice that that red and the black and flip them happens to everybody it's an accident but make sure you pay extra attention because with hybrids jump started backwards and we have problems serious ones just letting you know so there you have it folks i hope your toyota hybrid lasts you a very long time and you have no issues with them because they're awesome cars they're very reliable and now you know a few things that you should not do to them i hope this video was helpful and informative for you i hope you learned something new if you like this video give it a thumbs up subscribe to the channel check out some of my other videos may the lord bless you and keep you and you have a wonderful day

Channel: The Car Care Nut

Views: 1,213,081

Keywords: never do this to your toyota hybrid, dont do this to your toyota hybrid, hybrid reliability, camry hybrid, rav4 hybrid, sienna hybrid, highlander hybrid, venza hybrid, hybrid battery, bad hybrid battery, hybrid mileage, bad hybrid, toyota hybrid, things you should never do to a hybrid, is hybrid cars good, is toyota hybrid good, hybrid battery failure, hybrid battery fan, hybrid battery problems, how to jump start a toyota hybrid, rav4 prime, tundra hybrid, hybrid problem

Id: y5oaQ0LW3A4

Length: 19min 30sec (1170 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/pinktacoliquor]

I got me one of those compact lithium battery jumper packs on Amazon. I've given a lot people a Jumpstart with those. Much easier and no worries about possibly messing up vehicles.

[u/Night_Owl_16]

I sure wouldn’t. The 12v battery in the prime is extremely small.

I’m sure people know this, but the 12v battery is in the back. There are jump contacts under the hood TO BE JUMPED, but not to give a jump from. So if push came to shove and you really needed to jump someone from the R4P, you’d have to back up to their car and then connect directly to the battery in the back.

[u/logics8]

Yes it is true. The battery is a fraction the size of a regular car. It's just to keep the electronics powered when the car is off.

[u/RedElmo65]

I never jump anyone anyways. Call AAA.