Scary warning lights at 700 miles

I don't know about the lights, but all U.S. Toyota dealers are contractually obligated to provide any Prius owner with a free loaner (dealer stock or independent rental agency) if their car is kept overnight or longer for warranty repairs. See your Warranty Guide for details.

 

warning lights

I had the same warning lights go on at 1,600 miles, Friday afternoon, on my way out of town for the weekend. Took it in to Glendale (CA) Toyota, and was advised NOT to continue my trip. Took a rental car and left the Prius with them. Monday morning, they call to say it's fixed, the computer needed to be reset. Will they pay for the rental? No. They say I was not told it was unsafe to drive, just that they did not KNOW if it was safe to drive. This seems to me like a quibble. Any suggestions?

 

Yes, kick it upstairs and become a squeaky wheel. A quick call to the national 800# in the warranty guide will open a case. They can often have a dealer wake up and smell the coffee.

That should work, but for the price of one day's rental a lawyer would be a waste of time. They paid for the tow, right? That shows their concern. It seems like you're in the right to demand reimbursement for your only alternative transportation. Please keep us posted.

 

Thanks for the response. No, actually, no tow was necessary, so they didn't pay. But I'll follow up on your suggestion.

 

Believe it or not, I can turn on the red triangle at will. All I need to do is set the car in Ig-on mode (push Power twice without touching the brake) and raise or lower the windows. This discharges the auxiliary battery enough to turn on the triangle, which stays on for a couple of days. The first time I saw that big, red triangle I was very scared; now I don't pay any attention to it. Your auxiliary battery may be weak.

Don't worry too much about the check engine light, either. It's known to come on in new cars and go off by itself in a few days.

 

scary warning lights, cont'd

Picked up my Prius after the weekend, with the computer reset. A little gentle reasoning with the service manager produced the decired result: they picked up the tab for the rental. Thanks for the responses.

 

It's happening to me too

My Prius is at 4500 and the red triangle and red car with the exclamation point came on (a weekend of course).The car died after two miles. I turned the air conditioner off and it restarted (with red triangle and red car still on), so I left it at a friend's house over the weekend.

This morning I had it towed to the dealership. Of course no red triangles when at the dealership. They kept it for about five hours and said all was fine.

Then after an hour, the red triangle and red car came on again. This time I had the engine display running and noticed that there was no power coming from the engine.

I have taken the car back to the dealership, but suspect once again they will find nothing wrong. Prior experiences suggest that I will have to tell them what to do.

Someone in another topic mentioned an inverter caused the problem. What is the inverter, and is it likely to be at fault here?

I will look eagerly for advice.

 

Does this loaner have to be a Prius?

 

Re: It's happening to me too

Had it rained at all? Some priuses have trouble with water/condensation getting into the engine.

 

No. Although we live in Syracuse, the problems occurred on dry days.

 

Further reflections on the red triangle red car problem

I am gradually figuring out what is going on with all the red warnings, now that the Toyota service people have told me there is no problem, and "that is the way the Prius is".

It appears that when I turn off the car I do something that results in the car having the red warnings on the next time I turn it on.

Last night it was even more scary. When I turned the car off, it turned itself back on with a red light in the power button plus all the other warnings, and I was not able to either get the car moving or turn it off.

A nice passerby helped push the Prius out of an intersection, and I almost gave up figuring how to turn it off. As I closed the door, a yellow screen came on saying to hit the park button. Once I did, it solved the problem. I was able to turn the car off and turn it on again with the warning gone.

My usual way of turning the car off is to hold my foot on the brake and hit the power button. After the car is off, I then put on the parking brake. I must have changed something I'm doing since this procedure worked fine before.

From now on, I am going to try to follow the manual as closely as possible, which means hitting the park button before I turn off the car.

I'll keep you posted if this solves the problem.

 

Re: Further reflections on the red triangle red car problem

If you open your door while the car is in gear (or even neutral perhaps) you'll automatically trigger a warning. Are you opening the door before you turn the car off perhaps?

 

Re: Further reflections on the red triangle red car problem

I think the problem is that you're not hitting the park button before turning the car off.

 

Problem finally solved

For the third time in a week, I took the Prius in for this problem. This time I tried to drive it in with the red triangle and red car showing, so the maintenance people could see there really was a problem. I got as far as the left-turn lane at a major intersection right before the dealership and the battery died.

I abandoned the car and ran to the dealership to see if they could get the car to their facility. They had me call up the 1-800 roadside assistance. I indicated I would be by the car awaiting a tow.

When I got back to the car there were a lot of angry people, but the battery had partially recharged. I was able to drive it to the dealership, where I cancelled the roadside assistance request.

The service people had to accept there was a problem. They eventually discovered a loose wire to the 12 volt battery. Now that that has been fixed, the problem has gone away.

So it was not something I was doing. Two things I learned -- the Prius will only go about a mile with the red lights on before dying, and second, if you can wait about ten minutes, it will partially recharge the battery after dying on you.

 

Tom,
Mine just died also- check engine light, no engine, battery drained. Was able to get off freeway. Stopped car. Engine seemed to start again, but not charging battery very much. Had to make hubby come over and trade cars while waited for Toyota tow truck- I had to get to work- I teach in the eves. They first said 1 hour. That was now 1 1/2 hours ago. They just called and said maybe another hour. Hope they get there before the dealer closes.....

Is Toyota emergency assistance always this bad? We live in a small (??)city with 5 million people, so not having anything close is impossible. AAA was always better than this...

Mileage 7,666. The first month (less 3 days) the car spent in the dealer's repair shop....that was Feb.

 

I had a similar problem at 7,000 miles in my 04 Prius. I took it to the dealer and they said they could find nothing wrong. 5 days later, (today) it happened again. I took it back and they said they now realize there is a Special Service Campaing 40D that fixes this problem. I found the following information on the web:
_____________________________________________________

SSC 40D - 2004 MODEL YEAR PRIUS HYBRID VEHICLE ON-BOARD DIAGNOSTIC
SPECIAL SERVICE CAMPAIGN

What is the condition?

On certain 2004 Model Year Toyota Prius vehicles, the Hybrid Vehicle Electronic Control Unit (HV ECU) and Battery Electronic Control Unit (Battery ECU) may not conform to some portions of the diagnostic tool communication standard due to a programming error. If a repair facility's On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) scantool is used to diagnose a condition where the hybrid system warning light and/or master warning light is illuminated, the OBD scantool may not recognize the system fault.

What will Toyota do?

Before you are inconvenienced by this condition, Toyota would like to reprogram the ECUs in your vehicle. Any Toyota dealer will conduct this service at NO COST to you.

What should you do?

Please contact your authroized Toyota dealer to make an appointment to reprogram the ECUs as soon as possible. The labor time necessary to reprogram the ECUs is approximately one hour. However, depending upon the dealer's work schedule, it may be necessary to make your vehicle available for a longer period of time. The Toyota dealer will make every effort to assure your utmost convenience during this service.

In order to assure your full protection under the emission warranty provisions, it is recommended that you have your vehicle serviced as soon as possible. Failure to do so could be determined as lack of proper maintenance of your vehicle.
___________________________________________________

 

Man, the same problem just happened to me this morning on my way to work. Right around 1600 miles on the car. I had only electric power and I was able to drive it off the freeway to an exit. I waited a few minutes to restart and the red triangle and check engine lights stayed on, and the MFD stated that there was a problem (but at least some of the other lights went out). I turned it off and waited some more, heard my Prius make some random noises in the "off" mode. I tried to restart, and everything seemed normal (no warning on the MFD), but the check engine light was still on (no red triangle tho). Drive another 10 miles to Carson Toyota, where I dropped off my car.

On the rest of my drive, I looked at the info screen, and my battery had recharged to one bar below max (still green). This was odd since it normally is never in the "green zone" for very long.

I hope it's not a major problem.