I just filled up my 2006 Prius today, and the yellow check engine light illuminated, followed by the VSC light, then the yellow exclamation mark with little brackets around it - like this ( ! ), and the red triangle with an exclamation mark. The touch screen is also now displaying PROBLEM in red letters. Upon inspecting the trip information screen, the Hybrid battery was discharging rapidly from a stationary position, then it fully re-charged (strange). During this, the combustion engine was running. Once the battery fully recharged, the engine cut-out. When driving it, the regenerative braking didn't seem to work (don't hear the high pitched whine when braking). But, apart from that, the car seems fine. I'm not driving it now in case there's a safety issue, and it's booked in with the dealer on Monday to be looked at. Does anyone have any ideas what this issue could be?
Use the method outlined here and report all 3 values back here. Weird stuff happening? MPGs dropping? Test The Battery | PriusChat You can just use the parking lights instead of the headlights.
Make the Prius READY, open the hood, and look at the inverter coolant reservoir. Do you see fluid turbulence within? If no, then the inverter coolant pump has failed and that is the root cause of your car's problem.
Thanks for the responses. Just got a call back from Toyota. They said that the Hybrid battery has failed and will need replacing. Thankfully, it's still under warranty, so they're doing it for free. If it was this time next year though (end of eight year battery warranty), it would have cost $3,400 they said. I knew it wouldn't be the 12V battery, as I only had that replaced around six months ago. Phewww....
That is great that they are replacing for free. Could you get the codes that they read from the car, and post them to this thread? Just as a data point for reference. How many km on the car? How much of the year is the climate hot?
Car had done around 125,000KMs. I live in Melbourne, Australia - so hot for around 4 months of the year. I'll ask them about the error codes, but suspect they probably won't give much detail.
It should be your right to know. Generally they put the basic diagnostic data on the repair bill given to the customer, so this is not by any means secret data. You might have to ask for it. Your battery has not had much stress on it. It is rare that they fail at that level of use, which is why I am curious.