Red Triangle + Check Engine Light on

2007 Prius with 172000 miles. I have lurked around here for several years and have saved a lot of time and money from others good advice but I dont think I have posted here. This problem started around 3 weeks ago when the red triangle and CEL came on while my wife was driving it. OBDII scanner showed p3000 code. On the advise of others I ordered a mini VCI. While I was waiting for it to come in I decided I would try clearing the code and see if it came right back. To my surprise it didn't come back, so I drove around the block and slowly started to drive it on longer drives. We went about 600 miles as a rough guess and then this morning the red triangle, CEL, VSC, (!), and hybrid system light on the touch screen came on all at once. When I parked I shut the car off and then turned it back on, now the red triangle, CEL, and hybrid system light remained on and the VSC/(!) lights went off. I ran by Autozone real quick to see if any codes came up on the OBDII and nothing came up leading me to believe it is a Toyota code or hybrid system code.

About one or two weeks prior to the first event my wife came out to the car from work and the factory alarm was going off. When she tried to start it the 12V battery was dead. She jumped it from under the hood and everything seemed fine until this started. Besides the codes I have not had any other problems with the car. We replaced the 12V battery around 3-4 years ago. Is the 12v battery a possible cause for all this.

Checked the inverter fluid and the coolant is swirling. I dont know how much turbulence there should be but it was just a gentle swirl. All other fluids that can be checked by just popping the hood looked ok. The HV battery seems to charge like normal and there has not been any significant drop in MPG.

Other then the lights the car seems to operate as normal while driving.

When I get home tonight I can hook up the VCI and get codes.

Any suggestions or help is appreciated.

Thanks

 

Yes keep up with the maintenance pretty well but I do most of it myself. The one thing I havent done that looks like I need to have done that I was reading about today is a brake fluid flush. I bought the care with 60K on it and dont know the service history before that.

Any thoughts on why the VSC and (!) came on then cleared itself after restarting.

Thanks

 

I have about a 40 mile drive back home tonight. Anything that sticks out of why not to drive it tonight. I know it is a do at my own risk but the inverter pump seems to be working and it seems to be driving normal. Outside temps will be between 10-20F.

 

Thanks bisco and dolj. I was unable to get the mini VCI driver installed because my computer is 64bit. I was trying to work around it but no success yet so I think I will change the OS or find another cheap computer on ebay. While waiting on that I will test the 12V battery. I was able to hook up my OBDII scanner and pull and advanced code of p3000 but from what I have read that doesnt seem to mean much.