Help help!!!!!!

I have a long and horrible tale! As previously read in other hybrid forums and on ebay....
Prius Gen 1 needed MOT, got it easily at Toyota garage in Elgin (back'o'beyondsville).
Next day, driving the car home, it lost power gradually and eventually conked out after about 40 miles. AA returned the car to Elgin who after much hmmming and hawing (a week or so) read the codes and decided it needed a new transmission. This was going to cost me £900 and the man hours about £1000 so worth more than the car so car was scrap.

BUT, after kind people emailing from ebay told me that a broken transmission means No Driving at all, something is not right.

I rang Inverness Toyota who say the same thing. 'Limp Home Mode' which is what my car is on now is not usuable with a broken transmission. It can mean something else possibly worse or better than the transmission. Also, Inverness says a new transmission costs £2000 so they're not sure what this 900 figure is.

I've just rang Elgin to get the codes and an explanation of the part needed but they're refusing to give me the codes until I pay for the cost of the diagnostic test (£80).

I love my car but am feeling drained - I am on limp-home-mode!

Does anyone have any experience of this or any ideas?

 

I bought the car 5 years ago in England, so my car's been around the block. I'm going to set my husband on the garage and hopefully get the codes. If not, it'll be going to a new garage for a new diagnosis.

Everyone seems to be suspicious of this transaxle story.


Ugh!! Thanks anyhow!

 

Darn it, I'm going to have to pay that shoddy garage to get the codes. The MOT is not fine-tooth stuff but they did change the Brake pads. They say there is no way that could have effected the car but someone has told me they might have accidently 'reset' it while changing the pads.
Does it not strike this forum as odd that a car (ok, not a new one) that has never had a problem should go in for a test and come out with a fault?
Trouble is, they admitted themselves (even as a Toyota dealer) they knew very little about Prius.
I can't tell you all how much I love my car and how grateful to you all I am for trying to save its life!

 

Yup, we've had a word with the garage and have undertaken to pay them and they've promised to refund some of the cash if it turns out they were at fault.
Codes tomorrow (hopefully).
So, I have the three warning signals on the screen - the exclamation mark, the triangle the engine and the message 'take the vehicle to a garage' (this is all from memory - if exact wording description is important, I'll go out and take a look)
-The noise is like that of a bike dynamo, rising and lowering in pitch as the car moves. -The engine is slightly over-revving. There is a sluggish feeling of pulling, again as if the car was constantly on the braking setting.
- My car needs fuel right now but as I'm too scared to take it onto a busy, fast road, have not yet visited the petrol station. I will get it a can of petrol soon.
- On rainy, damp days this car did occasionally show up these exact warnings and have a lack of power and eventually stop within a mile. To sort this out I simply re-started the engine and the warnings vanished and the engine was fine.

 

The car did have these warnings but only occasionally and only on damp days. I put it down to the car not liking damp weather. I did take it to the garage the first time but because the warnings fix themselves within a mile, the mechanics shrugged their shoulders and said they couldn't do anything (this is before I knew anything about computer read-outs). This issue only came up on a few winter mornings but it has been a consistent feature of this car since I got it 5 years ago.

When this happened before I would not get the dragging and whining noises that have happened now.

I will have the codes today.

There are 83000 miles on the clock. I drive pretty carefully, am not a thrash-merchant. My MPG is 55!

 

I've been told about this TA oil. On another forum, I was told that Toyota recommend it to be changed every 60,000 miles but in reality it should be changed every 30,000 miles. It is something only a garage should do, I'm told. If I had known about it I would have made a point of having it changed - maybe the garage did it during previous MOTs but they didn't do it to my knowledge.