Hello, I rescently acquired my first prius. I was in the market for a cheap car (like under $2000) to avoid commuting in my one ton Chevy. Long story short my buddy had a 2005 prius with 185000 miles . He just replaced the battery pack last year for $4500. Rescently the brakes failed and the dealer quoted him $2500 to replace the anti skid ecu, so fed up and in a fit of rage he sold me the car for $1500. I bought the part and a Chilton manual but it says nothing about the anti skid ecu or its location....any help would be greatly appreciated. I really like this little prius and I would love to get it back on the road. Thanks Shand
First, what are the symptoms the car shows at present? What are the DTC's which the dealer read? It does happen that dealers are not the best ones to trust with respect to diagnosis. Make sure the 12V battery is in good shape and fully charged, as that leads to many spurious error readouts. Please do the following test: Entering Maintenance Mode (aka 12V Battery Check) without Switching Headlights ON/OFF | PriusChat Assuming that you have brake error lights on the dash, it is possible to get "blink codes" that further narrow the troubleshooting: ABS, VSC Lights... Weird!! | PriusChat Post the results here. The skid control ECU is located behind the dash, near the steering column, and is a bit of a project to get to. You want to be sure it is the culprit before proceeding. They tend to be quite reliable, whereas failed 12V batteries are a daily occurrence.
Wow! Thanks for the quick replies! I just got to experience the symptoms first hand....scary! The thing ran perfect for about 15 miles then it happened. The abs, vcs,(!), and break lights came on on the dash accompanied by a high pitched electronic whine from behing the dash and total break failure. I was able to stop it by standing on the break petal with all of my 240 pounds but just barely. I pullhed over and turned the car off for a while and then it worked fine again but only for about 2 miles then it did it again . I got out the amp meter to test the 12v system and it was putting out 13.3v. I've heard if the 12v battery fails it can masifest in a similar way but it all checks out....what do you guys make of it? Thanks Shane
1. You should obtain Mini VCI (Toyota Techstream clone) so you can retrieve the DTC logged by the skid control ECU. 2. techinfo.toyota.com is a subscription website where you can obtain factory repair manual info including how to access the skid control ECU. Depending upon the DTC, perhaps the brake pedal position sensor might be an alternate reason for the failure, and if so that sensor is much easier and less costly to replace.
There is no way to tell without DTC or blink codes at the least. Definitely, if you want to DIY on a Prius, the mini VCI is the way to go.
What you describe sounds like a bad skid control ecu. It is directly under the drivers side dash. Easily recognized by the strange waffle iron pattern of the metal enclosure. Get one from the junk yard for $50 and install it. I would also recommend getting the mini vci scan tool and getting set up to read codes.
