Another Prius Dies on the Highway

ahhhhhhhh sounds like the electronic module in my ford escort many years ago, the car just shut off, that s been my last are of concern, with so many electronic pieces, is this car more prone to those type of issues. I unforutnately owned a corolla that must have been built on a friday afternoon, after happy hour began, I had alternator problems and many electrical issues.

 

they should be able to pull diagnostic codes. if they have no idea what they're doing i'd take the car to another dealer. good luck, and let us know how this turns out.

without much info there's not much speculation we can do.

 

If it turns out that the problem was not caused by anything you did, then you should still be covered under Toyota's warranty. The 3/36 warranty covers everything bumper-to-bumper, but the powertrain is covered for 60mo/60K miles, and the HV battery, including other HV components, are covered for 8yr/100K miles.
Sounds most likely it will be a HV problem or powertrain problem, so you should be OK--if they don't pinpoint it do something you did.
Hope it all works out well.


Here's the link to the Toyota site where I got this info.
http://www.toyota.com/prius/models.html
Click on "limited warranty" and then at the bottom of the page it has the special stuff about the Prius coverage.

 

okay. DH looked at this and has a thought. this whole thing sounds like a crashed ECU to him.

that plug should have gone in easily and smoothly. if not, something somewhere isn't right. if it's not in there securely, it might wiggle out, causing the same symptoms you saw when you couldn't get the plug in.

if that plug isn't in there right and they find it at the dealer... it could be bad news. do let us know how this turns out, let's keep our fingers crossed that it's something else.

 

There have been very rare cases of this happening. Sometimes the car spontaneously resumes working on its own. A friend of mine drives an '01 or '02. It died and would not start. She had it towed. Had to wait out the weekend. On Monday morning it started up as though nothing had happened, and has worked fine ever since. This was 6 months or a year ago. Others have reported the same.

Good luck to you. I hope it gets fixed soon under warranty, or just decides to wake up on its own.

 

Sure sounds like that plug is the problem. I have worked on a few thousand cars (back in my car audio/alarm days), and if a plug does not go in smoothly, something is wrong. Most likely it occured when you removed the plug. You may want to ask them if they have a "spare" plug that you can push into the socket in the car to see if it goes in better then your plug. If that plug still has the problem, then see if they have a "spare" ECU and try plugging your plug into it. Hopefully that will tell you if the problem is there.

Those pins are so small...if one of them is bent it would be almost impossible to see it with the naked eye. One of the male pins could be seating on the outside of the female pin...which could have eventually worked its way apart. The heat from the ECU into the pins could also have contributed to losing the connection if the male pin was not inside the female pin.

The weird thing is that it "suddenly" happened, but she could have gone over a bump, knocking it loose. There is not much tolerance when it comes to those pins.

The autolock and nav kits both have to "tap" into power in order to function, so a blown fuse is always a possibility (it never ceases to amaze me that a tech sometimes looks for difficult stuff before checking the easy stuff like fuses). I have worked on cars where a blown fuse, that is labeled "lights" also protects part of the computer...but does not say anything about it in the literature...and if blown, the car will not start!

Of course, it could be the main "ON" button itself...but I have not heard of that failing before.

Let us know what happens.

 

In summary, when you get your car, leave well enough alone.

 

Well, least until the warranty runs out and you have some more money in the bank.

 

I might add that thousands of people mod their cars with no ill effects. This is not just the Prius. Heck, if we didn't mod our cars beyond the OEM, where would the aftermarket business go? I just love it when any car dies and the first thing that comes to mind is 'did u add something to it'. Been doing that for years and so have thousands of others with no issues.

And those that don't mod, and then have the car die or do something weird...what causes that? Were they just thinking about adding something and the car stopped running...

 

i talked to a guy at my gym who had an 04 that suddenly died one day. after spending at least an hour trying to restart it. he finally called roadside and had it towed to the dealer. by the time it got there, it started no problem.

he was unwilling to wait at the dealership and decided to take it without any delays (im guessing on this part because he had no information at all as to why this happened. when i asked about codes, his look reminded me of a jack-o-latern i had when i was a kid)

that was over a year ago and his car has worked perfectly ever since. so this can come and go. have to admit this story comes from a "just drive it" kind of guy. i asked about gas, gas cap, warning signals... all that stuff. he had no hints clues or suggestions about what the cause may have been.

part of the reason was it happened fall 2004, and he only told me about it a month or so ago.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ggood @ Mar 29 2006, 07:37 PM) [snapback]232124[/snapback]</div>

Is (4) bypass the plug and hardwire the plug an option? If yes consider raw crimp connectors that can be soldered and then covered with shrink tubing. (The shrink tubing will need to be in place first.)

 

ggood, rotten luck.

Ebay ?

Your problem does make me think that a forum on PC for spare parts may be a good idea.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ggood @ Mar 30 2006, 12:37 AM) [snapback]232124[/snapback]</div>

How could any wiring harness cost $2400 to $3200? I can understand the $1000 labor, because I can imagine lots of things need to be removed in order to access all the places the harness goes to.

How about duct tape, rubber bands, or whatever else you can think of to hold the connector in place?

I don't know exactly where this plug is or what it looks like, but would there be a way you could attach one end of a rubberband near it, stretch it across the back of the plug, and secure the other end somewhere else so that the rubberband keeps the plug firmly in place?

And then there's always the superglue option.

 

At $3,000+ for the repair... a $4 tube of epoxy sounds like a wise investment.