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ABS VSC (!) red and orange on for no reason?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by kostantinow, Aug 18, 2015.

  1. kostantinow

    kostantinow New Member

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    Location:
    norwich
    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
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    N/A
    I had new front brake discs at my 2007 Prius 5 days ago at my authorised dealership and then drove for 5 miles back home and today for another 4 miles to work.

    Just half a mile after started driving this afternoon to leave work I had to brake suddenly from 15m/h to zero to avoid another car. Then the lights went on and remained on throughout my drive back home (about 4 miles).

    I tried switching off and starting again but I kept getting the same lights. The breaks seemed to work quite OK but I think the ABS was not working (didn't push them enough to lock wheels but it kind of felt so). Also I observed that even when I was stopped at traffic lights pressing the break and having the gear in D the energy monitor was showing that the car was using power from the battery.

    That's a 72k miles Prius that has only been regularly serviced at the authorised dealership.

    I'd be very grateful for your thoughts!

    K.
     
  2. geekwithoutacause

    geekwithoutacause Junior Member

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    2007 Prius
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    sounds like the dealer screwd it up. Hard to tell what it is without a code reader like mini vci
     
  3. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Vehicle:
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    Whether or not the dealer screwed it up, the first step is to find out what is the computer's reason for turning those lights on. You do that with a Prius-capable scan tool like the Mini VCI. If you don't have one, there is a method to get abbreviated codes blinked out on the dash lights, and there are threads describing how to do that.

    The codes can be looked up in the diagnostics volume of the service manual on techinfo.toyota.com, which will give you page numbers of the next steps needed to figure out what the problem is. It could turn out to be related to something the dealer did, but that's not ironclad; it would be strange for something else to happen to fail around the same time, but stranger things can and do happen. Either way, just finding out what the computer is trying to tell you is the first step.

    -Chap
     
  4. kostantinow

    kostantinow New Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2007 Prius
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    Thanks for that! I've managed to get it booked in my local dealership for today. I'll write back how this developed. Unfortunately it's all quite urgent as I have a 3k miles trip planned in 4 days...
     
  5. Tari

    Tari Junior Member

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    Location:
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    Vehicle:
    2006 Prius
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    Four

    Solved mine (Prius 2008) by changing front speed sensors, break actuator (though the actuator seemed fine), and skid control unit. Front sensors where damaged and upon reaching 70 mile/hr speed, the speed would go zero and mileage stops recording, after changing the sensors, still errors stayed on (May be it was already registered on the skid ECU), changed break actuator and bled the brakes, still no change, change the transaxle gear box, and front wheel bearings because they were making noise, still no change to the errors, then change the SKID control unit (located on the right hand side wing under the dash), and it cured the problem. I had to remove the whole dash. The problem I encountered during putting back the transaxle was damaging the parking sensor and the car could not start, just displayed all light and stuck in P mode telling me to park the car on a flat surface. Replaced the parking sensor at the rear of the gearbox (transaxle) that the only connector at the rear of the gearbox. The cover was damaged. Luck all these parts were coming from a donor car (2005) that had done 360k miles. The car now drives sweet, driven it up to 76mile/hr with no issues. No reprogramming Or recalibration.
     
  6. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Vehicle:
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    Because there are so many possible reasons those lights can come on, and reading the trouble codes from the brake ECU is the only way to know why they are on in your particular car, it doesn't really help anyone at all to tag on to a five year old thread and say which parts happened to get replaced on some other car that had some lights on.