abs actuator going out?

A new one won't run just sitting in Park until some hours have passed, so if one is running every 30 seconds in that condition, "about to go out" would be a very charitable description.

 

An hour is 3600 seconds. That would be low for the typical time a good unit holds pressure. Yours is leaking down more than a hundred times faster already. What kind of "hope for the best" are you holding out for?

 

It's not "in the toilet". It's not "circling the bowl". It's been flushed and is just about to disappear from sight.

I checked my 2006. Accumulator pressure voltage drops about 20-30 mV in 20 minutes of highway driving (no braking).

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All is not lost. I had a black 2005 where the pump ran about a year before actually coding out.

 

See this thread:

C1256/1391--anyone ever try using DOT4 brake fluid? | PriusChat

 

It has failed.

TMR-JWAP writes about driving another year waiting for the ECU to set warning lights and trouble codes that confirm what you already know about it.

Yet, if you could feel and hear the engine misfiring, would you wait to see P030x codes before doing something? If you saw no oil on the dipstick, would you wait to see the oil pressure warning?

 

There's no guarantee that it won't code tomorrow, but odds are good that it will function like this for a while and at least allow you to make preparations for the replacement, whether that be setting aside money for a shop to do it, researching and learning enough to try to DIY it, or even looking at replacing the car. Everyone's personal situation is different.

There's probably thousands of Gen 2s driving every day that have this issue and the owners don't even know it, and won't recognize it until it completely fails and throws a code and triangle. Then they're stuck with no warning of a potential $3k repair. You're already ahead of the game just by recognizing the pump is cycling more frequently. Not every issue on a car is catastrophic and requires immediate repair. Just like there's millions of cars out there driving right now that have a radiator dripping or an oil leak, transmission leak, AC refrigerant leak, etc. These jobs can be prioritized and planned for.

 

New to this forum, also on Toyota Nation as same handle. I currently own two almost bulletproof Echos both 2K models, a manual with 200 k miles, manual steering, AC and an auto with PS and 95k original miles. Either car I would drive coast to coast today. I can afford to take care of them with 60k hours experience including owning a repair shop, but decided I liked tax free house building. versus 50% deductions on joint income with the wife. 35 years paying into govt retirement chain letter was enough.

I'm looking for a nice 2nd gen, preferably kept up like I like to keep my cars, or very nice but needing a battery and hydro boost that will cost me $2800 for both if it is otherwise a very nice car. 2006 and later closer to 09 even better.

I watch various listings and know enough to fix battery and booster myself, but it hurts to do it that way (physically painful) leaning over a car, now I just lie down on it or on the ground under it. Brain still work pretty good and u-tube is my friend.

The photo is me and my 1972 Columbia 45, my current project. Don't make much retirement but just sold a house I built and another i restored, closed when the market was taking a dump, so it's in CDs and money market accts making $400 a week interest.

Post #1

 

I concur in TMR-JWAP's basic sentiment. I'd suggest that by the time the thing is already cycling more than a hundred times more frequently than a good one, some of the time for watchful waiting, researching, preparing, etc., is already past.

Since cars started giving trouble codes, that's made a lot of things easier to diagnose, and there are definitely times when a code can be shown in time to alert you to a problem you haven't otherwise noticed yet. But that doesn't mean we suddenly decided a problem you can already tell you have isn't real until a code shows up.

You're already going without the first stage of fail-safe redundancy built into Gen 2 Prius brakes, where if there were to be some electrical issue, the capacitor box could keep the ECU and actuator going and there would still be accumulator pressure to work the brakes. Normally, the accumulator holds enough pressure to give you 20 or 30 uses of the brake that way, but the pressure in your accumulator goes away in 30 seconds even with nobody using the brake. After that, you're straight to the second fail-safe stage, where there is no assist and only the front brakes are in the game.

So, yes, it has failed in a way that, for now, doesn't absolutely prevent you from driving, and that gives you some flexibility in planning when you'll deal with it. But that's not to say it makes sense to look at a system down to 1/100 of its design capability and say we're still waiting for it to fail.

 

It's just a question of what goes first- does the leakage increase until it codes or does the pump go bad and code (or completely fail?)

It all comes down to risk tolerance. Me, I have two "must haves" for any car. It has to go in the direction I steer it, and it has to stop when I push on the brake pedal. An impending fault like a leaking actuator violates the second (enough), and would irritate me on general principles.

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Sometimes it seems people just don't have a sense of scale for something that is already leaking one hundred times faster than a good unit. That's not really an "impending" fault. It's a glaring, in-your-face, present one, and in this case it already means the first layer of your fail-safe braking is kaput.

The talk of what will code or when is a little bit beside the point: it is great that cars got computerized and now they can sometimes give codes to help you trace down problems. But that's not the same as saying a problem you can already clearly tell you have somehow isn't real until a code shows up.

 

(shrug)

I often tell people that "X" part on their car is bad - sometimes they have me fix it, sometimes I have them sign a liability waiver & out it goes, because they can "still drive it" (until they can't).

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