A lot of modern cars monitor oil level now. The Prius is spartan in its monitoring system. I would have liked a water temp and battery voltage gauge. Toyota never realized people don’t open there hoods anymore. Gonna be expensive. You now have an OEM so at least once a week you need to check the oil. Don’t check on a fill up to much oil in the top end VVT system it will always show low. Check first thing in AM before starting the car. I would guess you will be losing a quart every 1000 miles soon. Maybe more based on posts I have seen.
Most any econobox used to display engine coolant temp, at least a rudimentary display. It's in there, in F or C degrees (readable with ScanGauge for example), and Prius owners tend to be a mpg conscious bunch, could really use that info. But Toyota dumbed the dash down.
Can’t recall a car that didn’t have a temp gauge. That’s been disastrous on this car. Belt falls off Water pump or water pump goes bad and it blows the head gasket. I changed my belt at 80000 miles it looked ok on the car but when I got it off it was pretty cracked.
I think the automotive industry in general has be phasing coolant gauges out? Maybe because it's no longer legally required?? I was just looking through a current Honda Fit Owner's Manual: looks like no coolant temp gauge there either. An overheating warning light is not the same: a failing thermostat can lead to an engine running too cold, for example. And it's good to keep an eye on a proper gauge, see your car going through the warm-up phases. Why Does My New Car Have No Temp Gauge?
Difference is that’s a BMW and is alerting you to oil getting low. Your light is alerting you that you are out of oil.
The "oil warning light" on Prius is oil pressure warning, and that comes on pretty much when you're SOL.
When you see the master caution light it’s not kidding. It’s detecting a fatality in a system. If it was in an airplane you’d sweat bullets till you could land. In a Prius people don’t swerve over and pop the hood instead they calmly go online and find this site join and then post about it. I wish there was a handy emoticon of me shaking my head in disbelief.
The worst thing about this with the Prius is that the belt drives *only* the water pump, so until the temperatures rises enough to trigger the warning light (which is basically just before the engine cooks) then you're not going to know a thing - no matter how vigilant you are. At least on a regular car the same belt usually drives both the water pump and the alternator, so you generally get an immediate "idiot light" based on the fact that the alternator is no longer charging the battery. Previously I had been driving (other cars) when the fan belt failed, and that was noticed immediately (before the temperature even began to rise), based on the alternator failure warning light alone. Luckily I've not yet had a belt failure on the Prius, but I'd imagine you would need to respond pretty quickly (to the light) and stop before the engine starts cooking. It's going to be a very much delayed warning compared to a regular car.
Yeah it was absolutely maddening for my brother. Even more so that a brand new $80,000 car couldn't go 1600km (1000 miles) without triggering that warning light. (I kid you not, the oil consumption was that horrendous, right from brand new!) When he was working interstate, he literally had to pack a litre of oil for his wife to drive the trip home (while he stayed behind), and give her instructions to watch for the light and stop and add the oil when it came on. It couldn't even do this ONE f**king trip without topping off, brand new $80,000 car, even when he had the oil level at full before she started. He's sold it now, but I'm pretty sure it has put him off German cars for life. BTW. When they remove the dipstick, the engine casting still has the passageway and everything for the stick, but it's just plugged off. He couldn't work out how to remove the plug (no hex key or anything) and we think it was probably a press fit. Anyway, he had the dealer remove it (the plug) and supply an aftermarket dipstick. He still got sick of it's oil eating ways and sold if after just a couple of years. Here is a guy having a bit of a rant about a dipstick-less BMW.
You just gave me a brain storm! Maybe someone has already done this, but I haven't seen it and it would take some work. Put a limit switch on the water pump belt and wire it to a light installed on the dash. It won't do us Gen 3 & 4 driver's any good, though. I guess we'd need to stick a flow switch into the hose at the pump or something somehow.
I was just yesterday thinking about a pressure switch actually. Seems that and a flow switch would be interesting to study and gain some insight about operation. I literally setup in both the 2006 and 2013 a HUD using an old smartphone dedicated with Hybrid Assistant and Car Scanner apps using a bluetooth OBD2 adapter. Used a $1.25 cell phone stand with some 3M heavy duty adhesive double sided tape on the bottom, a metal disc adhered to the phone and an old HD neodymium magnetic to hold. Definitely helps glean some more information and I though was more cost effective than purchasing a dedicated system since I can get more MFD like capabilities from the ~$25 phones.
