I have a 09 Prius 267k original hybrid battery. Had the abs pump replaced in 2020 The inverter pump in 2022 I've owned the car 10 years. I was driving in the interstate and the car jumped out of cruise doing 70, the VSC, large red triangle and smaller yellow exclamation point all came on. Car kept driving fine other than it wouldn't let me run cruise. Made several stops car seemed to run fine but I pulled codes anyway. Old codes, nothing new. I continued and after an hour it then lit up the red brake light, and a constant tone happened, then a few minutes ago later the car forced itself into neutral and I came to a stop on the side of road. I put it in park and we sat there for a few, and put it in drive and, with the exception of the earlier lights continued. Then the forced neutral started happening quicker and I just rolled into a gas station and just letting the car rest. The engine is not hot, the inverter doesn't feel any warmer than usual, I can't seem to feel the inverter pump vibrating, but I seem to remember the last time the inverter pump went, there was a code that was fairly specific for it. Any ideas what I'm dealing with?
Yes, an overheated inverter will sideline you until the inverter cools down. It's time to replace the inverter cooling pump again. Buy an OEM pump because they last much longer than aftermarket pumps.
You should be able to drive 40-50mph without overheating the electronics, especially at night with cooler air temperatures. Highway speeds will trigger the fault more quickly.
This is why it is a good idea to carry a code reader in a car these days. Especially a Prius. The big red triangle could also have resulted from some piece of road debris punching a hole in the ICE cooling system or the oil pan, and had you continued to drive with those problems you would now be looking for a replacement motor. A good blue tooth OBD2 reader and some software on the cell phone which pretty much everybody carries anyway will do the trick. Back in the day cars had temperature gauges and often even oil pressure indicators. These days you get the idiot light, which is car manufacturer "speak" for: there is a problem, we know what it is, but we won't tell you.
