New/used Prius owner here with a million questions. Only 1 today. When I first start the car a light pops up that looks like a blue thermometer. Does this mean coolant is low? Also, is there some grand legend somewhere that I can look at to see what everything means. Just ordered the manual but it'll be a few days until I get it. John
You can download it for free from Toyota if you can't find it in the glove box. Toyota Online Owners Manuals and Technical Manuals Also, give this a read: http://john1701a.com/prius/documents/Prius_User-Guide_iconic.pdf
The blue coolant light goes out around 40C. The more interesting things happen when the coolant reaches 70C as you'll soon learn. GOOD LUCK! Bob Wilson
Actually, this one is better suited for the 2001-2003 Prius. http://john1701a.com/prius/documents/Prius_User-Guide_classic.pdf
Newbie here also. My 2001's blue light comes on 100 % of the time of it has been parked (overnight, after work, etc). Goes off after about 2 miles. Hope that's okay
No problem but not much use: The blue light goes out at ~40C and doesn't really help. The car won't go into hybrid mode until it reaches 70C and a couple of simple steps: Coast down from a speed above 32 mph so the engine will auto-stop. Dead-stop for ~15 seconds for the engine to auto-stop. These preliminary steps along with a coolant temperature of 70C and the car goes into "S-4" hybrid mode. It will stay in hybrid mode down to ~60C. I have associated the blue light going out with when the heater in automatic will speed up the fan but I'm not sure it is a hard relationship. I typically drive with "heat off" and "recirculate" in the morning to get the coolant temperature up as soon as possible. Of course I'll treat fogged windshield with defroster but only enough to achieve safe driving. The rest of the time, defroster is off because it engages the air conditioner compressor to dry the air and evaporate the moisture. Once the engine coolant is warm enough to achieve hybrid mode, I'll use heat and outside air to keep the windows clear. Bob Wilson
I'm in Ohio- what's is -40c mean? We're on the Fahrenheit system here. Are you taking about the engine temperature or outside temp?
Engine coolant temperature, 40 C. Most of the Prius aware OBD scanners use metric. There are web sites to convert to Fahrenheit. GOOD LUCK! Bob Wilson
