Red Triangle :( Idling in the heat with the ac blasting

Hi Guys, I have a 2005 Prius with 270,000 miles on it. It just took a pretty big hit from a deer but is still running fine. I have an appointment to get a new radiator guard, front bumper, left side front panel and hood in about a week - total cost $2800.

The accident with the deer was on Mar. 28, 2021, 9 weeks ago. I wanted to give the car some time before I spent $2800 to fix it so that it could pass inspection, just in case it developed problems. It didn't, and handles the road just fine. I put a lot of previous work into it.

Today it was very hot. I was sitting outside a local store idling the engine and talking on my phone, texting to my friends with the AC blasting. I do this sometimes especially in the summer, it's just a habit. Well....I got the Red Triangle. Scared me half to death. I quickly turned the car off and let it cool down. I was terrified it was leaking coolant or something.

I turned the car back on in about 5 min, and it seemed fine. I turned the AC completely off. I was worried it had drained out the battery.

I just moved on April 7th, to a new neighborhood where I don't drive nearly as much as my previous one. I used to live on a 3 acre property and the nearest store was far from my home - enough to give the battery a good chance to charge. Now the nearest store is a couple blocks away. Do you think this has caused my battery not to charge as much as it used to, and caused the battery to dip low when I sat with the AC blasting, then causing the red triangle to turn on? When I checked the battery after driving home, it had 4 purple bars in the battery. This is low compared to how full it used to be when I was driving it long distances. I would turn it on and it would be full all the way to the top with the green bars.

I drove the car home and parked it. I lay down on the pavement to look under and see if anything was dripping but nothing was coming out. I have a service appointment tomorrow, so I'm going to see what they have to say.

Thanks for any and all advice about the Red Triangle, what could have caused it and so forth.

 

Bump - any opinions on what caused the sudden Red Triangle while I was idling? Thanks!

 

thanks for your help


"

 

Yes I thought of that, thanks for confirming my thought.

 

Hey, as a follow up, when I brought my car into the dealer today, I saw there was a nice little white 2015 Prius c two hatchback, so I bought it. It's being delivered next week, when I will drop off my old 2005 silver prius as a trade in. It's been so many adventures with the 2005 Silver Prius, and that car proved itself to be one of the best cars around in so many ways. At the end of it's stay with me, it took a full on deer strike and didn't stop rolling the entire time. These are amazing cars. I'm going to be sad to see the 2005 go, but it has run it's course and it's time.