That darn Red Triangle

For the second time now, I have gotten the dreaded red triangle.

I was parked, with the AC on, talking on the phone, with the car in the "ON" position. Yes, the ready light was on. I was sitting for quite a while so, the traction battery became drained, then the engine started up to recharge the traction battery. Then it went off again. After a while the engine came on again, then went off and I got a "red triangle" and a "check engine" light. I ended my call and turned off the AC. I was immediatly irritated when I saw the Red Triangle, because it only means something bad happened and I am supposed to call the dealer. Hmmph.

The car would not go, so I turned it off and waited about half a minute. The car came on, the engine started (since the traction battery indicator only had one bar showing) then when I tried to go the engine died. The red triangle and the check engine light was on. I did this a couple more times, but the car would not go. I was actually pointed up hill, so I decided to back down a bit and turn around so the car would point down hill. I did that, then proceeded to glide downhill for a while while the batter charged up. After a while the engine came on again. I drove around town a bit and soon the traction battery was charged up nicely. The red triangle did not go off until after I turned the car off a couple times. At this point I still have the check engine light on and the car is at the dealer.

At least I did not get stuck, but I was pretty close to being stranded. Something did not work right. I HATE THAT RED TRIANGLE!. The manual should say more about the triangle than "Call your Dealer".

I will let you know what the dealer tells me, but I bet it will be something like. "The computer stored an error code related to low battery. We cleared the code and everything seems fine now." I bet they will not be able to tell me what happened.

 

Don't it figure. There was no one there to talk to me about my car when I picked it up. It had about 6 different error codes. They sent the data to Toyota corporate who told them to recalibrate the fuel gauge. They concluded that I ran out of gas. Argh!!!! Nevermind the fact that there are three bars on the gas gauge. 300 miles since the last fill up and I put just over 10 gallons in the tank at the last fill up.

They reset the computer and the car drives fine. I am sure everything is fine, but I am also sure that some computer got confused when I parked it. I would just like to understand what happened when I parked it. Maybe I did something wrong, but I know that it was not out of gas.

 

Here are the codes that the dealer gave me;
P3190 Poor engine power
C2300, C2318 and C1300 also stored in memory.

Highly likely that the engine ran out of fuel. Toyota techline told him to reset combo and inclination sensors.

In the end, I think that due to the fact that I was parked at an angle to the side and backwards, the fuel delivery system could not adequately compensate. I probably had only a couple gallons left in the tank. I drove another 80 miles before filling up due to a blinking pip. Of course, for a Prius, 80 miles is only a gallon and a half.