Prius 2004 Check Engine Light

This is my first post here, but I've been reading for a while.

I have a 2004 Prius with Nav and smart keys. My wife uses this as her daily commuter. We are the second owners, since December 2009, the first being my parents.

The other day, she called me and told me that the red triangle of doom was lighted, along with the CEL, the brake warning, the VSC, and the car being bandsawed in two. I told her to check the tire inflation, which didn't help.

Reading in all these posts, it looked like changing the 12V battery might do the trick, and since the one in it was the original and we were about to leave on a 2,000 mile trip, I changed it. That went fine.

Check engine light stayed on for another day, then it turned off. Yay!

Well, it's back. And it's intermittent. I hooked up my Equus 3100, and it says "Err". This code scanner works fine on my other cars. So now, I'm not feeling confident.

How do I read the code if the code scanner thinks there's an error? What if it's the ECU? Has anyone else had this issue?

By the way, I suspect the inverter coolant pump, but, of course, I can't confirm that. All the places around here that used to give free code scans have stopped doing that. Dealer wants to charge $57 to hook a scanner to it for 20 seconds, and I'd need an appointment.

Any advice what my next step should be?

 

My scanner is not for CanOBD2. I just got one that is CanOBD2, and I get the same error.

I should note that my older scanner works on a 1996 Maxima and a 2002 Ford Escape.

 

Fiddled with the new scanner some more, and finally pulled a code:

P0A93, which according to Innova, sounds really bad; "Drive Motor ""B"" Performance".

Okay, how large are the alligators in my swamp? Or do I just need to change a water pump?

 

Thank you, and everyone else who responded.

Test driving this weekend, the car is 100% reliable when the A/C is off, but after about 10 minutes of freeway @ 70 mph, with the A/C on, all the warning lights come on, the cruise-control drops, etc. I think it's this pump.

I've never had one of these very far apart, so I do have a question. Is it easier to get to the pump if the driver's side headlight is out, or is getting it out a monumental task?

I wouldn't dream of driving from Sacramento to Vancouver, BC with this problem. To quote Lester Burnham, "Honey, that's just nuts." I'm sure Roseburg is a wonderful community, but I don't want to get stranded there for 3 days when I should be in Richmond.

 

I've been trying to find an answer to this one, but since Toyota has a TSB on this one, and the failure of this one relatively cheap part can result in the rest of the drivetrain having a huge, expensive, catastrophic failure that might result in sending the car to salvage, I wonder why this isn't yet a recall item. I intend to keep my receipts so that when Toyota eventually makes this right, I can get reimbursed.

I've often wondered why our Nav-equipped cars don't have a "Dashboard" function. Switch to that mode, and you'd get coolant temps, oil temp, oil pressure, engine rpm, motor rpm, motor/engine "splits", maybe even any DTC codes that are present, and so forth.

Anyway, just thinking out loud. I plan to buy this part and replace it tonight. Wish me luck!

 

Well, I got mine installed last night. Pretty easy job. Thanks for all your help. I can't believe some dealers are charging $500 P&L for a job their rookie tech should be able to do in an hour.

I saw the shiny new bracket and the dirty old bracket and tried to get the dirty old one out. I quickly realized it was pointless and a PITA, so I stopped trying after about 2 minutes.

Don't tell anyone. It'll be our little secret.

Is the pink antifreeze from the Toyota dealer at $20/gallon any different from the green stuff from Kragen for $8?

Should the AL ring in the drain plug be changed? If so, I'll make an effort to do that (knowing, of course, that I'll have to replace a bit of the coolant I'll lose).