Dashboard: Now You See It, Now You Don't

are you driving as much as normal? perhaps the 12v needs a charge.

could this be the dreaded combo meter defect?

 

Yes, you have a combo meter issue. It's not going to do any good to keep playing around with everything else. If you're handy, it's a 1-2 hour job if you buy a rebuilt combo meter ahead of time. If you're not handy, then you're going to need to pay someone to do it.

It's only going to get worse, and it's typically worse when colder outside.

The flashing squares, flashing one dot on the fuel gauge and the window positioning are typical symptoms of a 12v system issue. Has the car been sitting unused for a while? Whether is a bad connection somewhere or a weak or bad battery, it's a sign that the car is seeing a loss of 12v at the fuse box. Likely a bad connection somewhere in the trunk or a weak/bad battery. If you jump started the car, but didn't let the battery charge up by leaving the car READY for several hours, well, you still have a weak battery. Buy a 4 amp charger and give the battery a full charge.

Anytime the car loses 12v power, and then it's restored, you'll lose window positioning, fuel level indication, and radio presets. The first time you put your foot on the brake and press the power button, the dash will be full of warning lights. Press it again and they should clear and the car should go ready. Unless your dash doesn't work.

Dash's also sometimes go dark if there's an intermittent problem with the dimming dial/switch on the dash left of the steering wheel. Seen that a couple times. If you're having problems turning car off, it's not a dimmer switch issue, though.

 

P1121 is a common problem to do with the coolant flow control valve position sensor which you can research here. It is not urgent at this point, it can go to the bottom of the list.
P3193 - you ran out of fuel at some point.
B1421 - If you ran the codes at night or inside, just means the car is not in bright sunlight. It is not really a trouble code, more a binary switch indicator. If it was in the middle of the day in bright sunlight well then you might be looking into that. At moment it would be at the bottom of the list.

The ABS/ASC/TRAC and Transmission Control could all be related to poor 12V power supply. Get your 12V situation fixed then clear the codes and run again if trouble lights illuminate on the dash. Post the codes back here to this thread.

These are both symptoms of an interrupted 12V power supply. Check your battery terminals and your negative connection to the car body. They should all be clean and tight. If the terminal clamps are not pushed all the way down, loosen the clamps and pry them wider apart, then put them back on (all the way down to the bottom of the terminal post) and tighten with a closed-end box wrench being very careful to not pry the clamps upwards as you tighten.

The first problem you mentioned is because the auto up/down was not reset after the 12V power interruption. Simply wind the window down halfway then raise it to the fully closed position. When the window reaches the fully closed position continue to hold the power switch in the "up" position for a further 5 seconds. The window auto up/down should now work as advertised.

While it is true that the Prius does not have a physical device called an alternator, it nevertheless has electronics that provides that functionality. Therefore, "driving the Prius around" does charge the 12V battery, however, an adequate time to fully charge a fully discharged battery is in the realm of 16 hours. Obviously, if your battery is not fully discharged, it will take less time. In any case, be prepared for it to take quite a while to charge up to full using that method. Consider purchasing a fully automatic multistage battery charger with an AGM setting and keeping the charger on the battery if the car is not driven on a regular basis. Once fully charged, driving for 30 - 40 mins 2 - 3 times a week should keep it in good health. If you have SKS, disable it (press the "Key" button in) when the car is just sitting.

It certainly could be if the battery was still in good condition. You have nothing to lose by trying.

It almost certainly is – the DTC B1271 is a confirmation, but it needn't be expensive to fix. If you are handy enough to remove some dash panels you can either remove and send your existing meter to Matt @Texas Hybrid Batteries for repair, or you could order ahead and get a Rebuilt Combination Meter with odometer set to the correct miles. You can then return the misbehaving one for a core refund. If you're not handy, you will need to find a competent person (a friend or family member) to do it for you. All up, it should be about $150 to fix, more if you have to pay someone to do the job.

Either option is timely and cost-effective when compared to the dealer repair.

 

Real quick, because I'm pressed for time...
#2 is the typical failure mode for HID headlights. If you have foglights, you have HID bulbs in your car. IIRC, the 2004 and 2005 had D2R and the 2006 and later had the D4R models. There are some very good threads on here about the HID bulbs. Expensive does not always mean good and cheap does no always mean bad. The D4Rs we put in my sons car 2.5 years ago are still going strong and were only $34ish for a pair.

 

If you do have HIDs, this is where we bought ours. They've been great. Just remember D4R is for 2006 and later.

 

You need to get the 12V issue sorted first and foremost.

Aside from your HID headlight issue and the P1121 everything else is still shouting 12V power issue. Fix that and most of these problems will go away.

Your 3-month-old battery might be U/S if it has sat for any length of time in a discharged (or partly discharged) state. You need to get the battery tested to confirm, although the 10.3V reading pretty much confirms it.

I'm fairly sure you can get a 3.5 or 4 Amp NOCO Genius.

DTC P1121 is not Throttle / Pedal Position Circuit Stuck. It is Coolant Flow Control Valve Position Sensor Circuit Stuck. As I said it is not urgent as it does not affect the drivability of the car.

 

the noco have a pretty serious switch issue like you cannot turn it on . mine was just replaced a year out of warranty.. ive been driving a year with All ambers on dash when its on. car drives fine brakes perfect but all brake lite fails are on brake red and vsc etc all on . wen dash is off only check engine light glows its cat low threshold only.. Abs is 1364 or 65 low pressures code. ive noticed wen i come to car and press start and dash do not light. i go thru start process 11 times and dash is on and i may drive a month . if we at store and i tell my girl to drive she sits in car and no dash and no matter how many times she cycles switch no dash . I get in driver seat cycle 11 times dash on for maybe a month . girl gets in usually no dash..cycling the switch keeps my milage etc im waiting on brake pedal to go Hard permanently. then to change abs accum/pump hopefully clear Ambers...

 

I don't think I'm seeing how that charger would solve the no-electrical-outlet problem.



A dozen or so years ago, I bought a little five watt (so, under half an amp) solar charge maintainer to stick on a truck that was sitting in my driveway waiting to be sold. Worked great, kept the battery topped the whole time.

 

The likely reason like my 2009 Prius dashboard not lighting up on start up is the electrical connections from the dashboard to the main computer has gotten oxidized not making a good connection. The way I fixed this was to first disconnect the 12 volt battery the negative and the positive terminals. Then I removed the air vent to the left by the driver's side. Now a screw is exposed that I removed and also removed the screw at the bottom of the panels underneath the steering column that then allowed me to removed the cover for the dashboard that exposed the two electrical connections from the dashboard to the main computer. Numerous wires seen in these two connections. Then I sprayed both ends of the two electrical connections with electrical cleaner. I allowed them to completely dry for 6 hours and then reconnected them and put the car back together and reconnected the 12 volt battery. All lights on my dashboard now light up everytime I start the car.

 

I can't wait to try this as I've seen no bad electrical connections except in the rear right quarter of my car for the battery fan the too far right connections in that plug or always oxidized and look disgusting like there's a water leak in the back but the back of the car is clean whistle clean no traces of water no traces of white where water or brown where water would have been where you normally see these telltale signs of water I see none but yes the fan connector is always oxidized and kind of yucky now you're telling me to pull the vent out up front and look at the big connectors that go to the computers or the big plugs I mean they're huge like two and a half inches wide if I unplug those in my car I bet all of mine are in perfect condition no oxidation nothing this car is in beautiful condition it just has all the lights on I was thinking it was a bad hybrid battery or one that was failing so I took the one out of my 2004 car which is a green battery from Charlotte North Carolina Prius green battery company or something like that it was working fine in my 04 that the ABS modulator failed on and I could never get it replaced and get those lights cleared and had a rock hard pedal but other than that the car ran perfectly charged great had no lights on no problems nothing I put that battery in my '09 and I still have battery control codes and what have you the standard bad bad I keep clearing them and they're right there no matter what I do both batteries have the same exact codes I'm having trouble believing this because the battery out of the 05 sorry was doing perfectly and it just been put in the car right before I got it then the ABS lights came on I drove it two weeks and then the pedal went rock hard needed two people to stand on the pedal to stop the car no matter what I did to the ABS pump changed it replaced it cleared the codes I could never get a pedal again and the ABS lights have just stayed on for the last 9 months people have been telling me it's the hybrid battery hybrid battery hybrid battery I changed the hybrid battery out of my 04 to the 09 ABS and all lights are still on none of the codes will clear sometimes text stream is telling me that my plug that goes from the OBD2 port to the USB port on my Panasonic computer is not making proper connections but I know better than that because the red and the green lights on the plug are flashing and working then when I plug it in a couple minutes later it's working like it's supposed to and I clear the codes and they never really clear they're still showing they're even if I restart the car they're immediately back on I can't believe in two batteries both of the ECUs in the batteries are bad I find that hard to believe in my 09 when I took the battery out the battery was warm in the middle of the battery on the bottom the 0405 battery that I'm using in the 09 now never gets warm not where I can feel it anyway of course I haven't been able to run it that hard it keeps coding and putting the light back on when it puts the red triangle on the little red car and the MFD is red with an arrow and it looks like I'm not charging and everything's purple on the bars really annoying I'm going to go back to a regular gas car I think because this is just kind of stupid and people are wanting $8,000 for 09 Priuses with 200,000 miles on them with the trouble ready to start again

SM-A715F ?

 

Cripes Tom, paragraph breaks would help.

 

Yeah screw it nobody knows anything anyway no big deal Not found the thing in this thing in the 9 years that I've been looking at it it's all the same seems nothing ever gets fixed

SM-A715F ?

 

I'm dictating by voice it doesn't do whatever it doesn't do still it seems here a lot of stuff doesn't get fixed or everybody puts in a gen 4 and a gen 3 and 2 hardly anything I care about and they call it gen 4 engine a beast they're all 1.8 engines beast what I'm waiting for the 2 l yeah looks like I'll be waiting another 2 years

SM-A715F ?

 

Yeah the waiting game, same here.

 

@Tombukt2

Pick a day, bring it on down to Cola and let's try to fix it!!

 

If I thought techstream was at all flaky, meaning it didn't work right ever time, I'd be accepting your invite in a heatbeat, even from up here.