Trying to get a feel for how successful it would be to drive a 2007 Prius that I am going to pickup/buy for 2.5 hours on the highway with a failed inverter pump P0A93. Weather should be about 40 degrees. Not sure how critical these temps are and if there is a strategy to rest the vehicle and break the trip up. Seller says his son is driving the car each day for about 45 minutes one way with no issues. Oh yeah... there is also the ABS light recently on. Not sure the symptoms, but I think it was a very heavy brake pedal that would have been mentioned My plan is to dig up a spare inverter pump and repair before driving, but wondering if the risk is low, I would wait until I am home. Anyone know if Torque has an inverter temp monitor? I could also watch that.
I would tow it or replace the inverter water pump first. It will get hot fast and could burn up the inverter or cause limp mode. The inverter has a much lower trip point as well. The abs (brake booster) is an expensive repair, typically $2500 at a dealer.
I am leaning toward replacing the pump first as well, unless I learn that I can monitor the temp and keep it safe I don't know much about the ABS issue. I was looking for a 2010 and later until this car popped up, so I am more familiar with Gen3 sadness. Seems like Gen2 occurs less frequently and some people attempt to replace the brake actuator with used. I plan on getting it home and diagnosing the cause and maybe swapping out the brake actuator at that point.
After talking with the seller, I decided to not go ahead with this purchase. Appreciate the response!
Back on again. Seller told me that there was a local buyer and also that I would need to do more paperwork and a transfer tag. Just to make it easier I said go with the local buyer. Well as craigslist happens, that buyer vanished and it was offered again. I think I am going out on Saturday to get the prius. I will attempt to bring enough tools to do an inverter pump swap (first I will check that the fluid is not moving in the reservior) I will also bring my OBDII bluetooth adapter and Torque with Prius PIDs. I believe I saw that the inverter temp is "conv temp". so I can watch that and wait for a red flag. I also have Tech Stream on a PC, so I should be able to check the ABS code. Who knows, it might be something as simple as a sensor
NE USA car? Before doing anything else, check it for rust. Underneath and at the bottom of the body panels (because of the road salt) and under the battery in the back (because of the common water leak in that area). It looks like it will be pretty cold in New Jersey (Nj?) this weekend. If there is a path home on surface streets (<40mph) a failed inverter pump shouldn't matter if the ambient temperature is <50F. On the other hand, if the ABS is truly out there might not be working brakes, which would pretty much definitively rule out driving it back.
I have had three of these cars. Two were ok with rust and one had the rotted battery tray. I will check it out I could take the slow route but it would take over 4 hours. I will see if I can do the pump swap but the option of low speed is encouraging to have a plan b
As it turns out the inverter pump worked. I used torque with the Prius pid set to watch the inverter temp and it stayed low the whole way since I had planned to swap the pump I brought along a hose to bleed the pump and verified the noisy pump was working by bleeding the inverter.
