First Breakdown

Battery issues discussed at this thread- reprogramming ECU- software upgrade for battery issues:

"http://priuschat.com/forums/2-vt4069.html?start=20

This TSB applies to all 2004 Prii and states, "The information contained in this TSB supercedes TSB No. EG027–04. TSB No. EG027–04 is now obsolete and should be discarded.

 

Well, can you even buy a new car that doesn't have some sort of computer control? I'm referring to a motor with "up integrated" ignition or coil-per-cylinder, temp sensors, MAP and barometric pressure sensors, O2 sensors, TPS, mass air, knock, crank angle, cam angle, etc etc. The automatic transmission has shift solenoids and reluctor rings to determine shaft speed, and pressure sensors to determine line pressure. Most automatic 4WD systems, such as the AutoTrac in the 2000 GMC Sierra I used to own, have additional reluctor rings to determine front shaft speed and front/rear shaft speed difference (About every 4 months my display would flash SERVICE 4WD in scary amber letters). True, the Prius carries system integration to a new level. A neighbor of mine in the condo I live in has a 2004 BMW 745iL with that insane IDrive system, his is ALWAYS broken. Another guy I know is in the construction business and he purchased a new 2003 GMC Sierra 2500HD with the Vortec 8.1 V8. Among other things, this motor has a drive-by-wire throttle, same as our Prius. Things worked fine until he installed one of those high-power shortwave radios in the truck to talk to drivers at remote sites beyond cell service. The first time he keyed the mic, the motor misfired then died in city traffic and refused to restart. Whenever my GM AutoTrac went insane, it defaulted into 2WD and I could never drive out of my vacation property in winter, as I would helplessly spin trying to make the steep hills. I just wish the engineers would prototype these systems a lot better, God knows you can easily buy test software to do this, or just write your own. Cripes!

 

I found the page that states to shift to "N" when the aux. 12 V battery is disconnected, then reconnected. Page 138, section 'i'. Not sure what to make of it.

The short version is after reconnecting the aux battery, shift to N and confirm it's in N when the IG-ON mode is enabled.

So I think I did that. I reconnected the aux. battery, then pressed power with my foot on the brake, shifted to N, then pressed park. How are you supposed to shift to N BEFORE you press power?

Anyway, I have had no reoccurence of any red triangles of doom or VSC lights, nothing. Could have been a computer gremlin. I get those in my home machine, and work, and everywhere in between!

 

[sniff]..........hmmmm......I smell a Mac user.

 

By law, OBD2 compliant vehicles like your older Prius must keep track of "Misfire History." If you think it was due to bad/low fuel, and the problem cleared after a few ignition cycles, you should be fine. Although the system will keep the codes in memory, it should drive normally. My local Toyota dealer offers a free scan of Toyota cars that have the MIL on or reported MIL on. Otherwise, it's up to you to determine if it makes sense to pay somebody to retrieve the codes. Although any scan tool offers basic OBD2, the car makers have a lot of unique functions and codes that can only be interrogated by a specific manufacturer-approved scan tool. Remember the 2004 and up also use CANbus (Controller Area Network). I shudder, I've encountered enough CAN problems in Process Automation.

 

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I had the same exact thing happen to me tonight (2004 Prius). Unlike your post however, I had over half a tank of gas. I was sitting in stop-and-go traffic when those two lights came on and the MFD had the car with the ! on it. As the manual says to stop driving it immediately and contact the dealer, I (gasp!) did just that. Moved off to the side of the road first of course.

My dealer had no idea what to do, apparently no one had told them Prius owners that decided to follow the manual might actually call them. No one at the service center as it was after their service center had closed. This presented me with a very troubling situation.

What the hell do you do if one of those lights come on ordering you to stop immediately, and you're nowhere near a dealer? I realize maybe if this particular set is a engine burp or something, you can restart it a few times. But some of the other icons are downright scary (brake system failure, etc.)

How can you take the car on a road trip if you always have to watch your distance to the closest dealership? What happens if your car breaks down in the middle of the night?

I realize that in the future all cars will be loaded with electronics, and probably only specialized places will be able to deal with them. I'm not sure I want to be on the bleeding edge anymore though. If you're on a road trip and this happens, say 300 miles from the nearest dealer, it's going to suck.... A LOT. Wheras most little gas shop service centers can handle things like brake problems, etc. that require trained service people with lots o computers for a Prius.

Heck, now that I remember it, even the Toyota dealership service center can't handle the issues. They told me whenever a system goes weird, they upload it to some experts somewhere else, and typically just replace every computer chip related to what failed.

Given the amount of money I sunk into this, I'm rather disappointed that the dealer was clueless. I'll see what they say after looking at it tomorrow.

 

This looks like the proper place to post my sad story. I have an 03 Prius. Last year I had the Triangle light come on with the !car light on the MFD. I was able to reset the light using a Davis Carchip and the lights reset and I didn't see the problem again ...... until a few weeks ago. I reset the lights again and all was well. Last week the lights again came on. I drove to work. After work, the car started fine and all warning lights were off. The last attack was today. Drove around the block, shut down engine, restarted engine and all lights except the check engine light had reset. In all cases, engine seemed to run normally and gas mileage was normal.

The only common denominator I could come up with was that the outside air temps were cold (Michigan Winter has Arrived). Have any others had these symptoms? Any theories on the cause?

Any help will be appreciated.

Also, I am trying to order the mini-scanner from Ecrostech. Has anyone had experience with this? Apparently they won't make another "batch" until enough orders are placed.

The Davis Carchip reads out a code that is not a Toyota recognized code.

 

Why are you resetting the codes yourself on a 2003? Isn't the warranty still in effect? By resetting the codes yourself, you may very well void the warranty.

Every car and pickup truck I've ever had, while on warranty I've only done routine servicing IOW oil changes. I let the dealer handle any issues, which are then documented so I can Cover My A** if something DOES break.

If I still have my Prius off warranty, I may be tempted to look at the software, maybe reverse engineer some of it. In the meantime, there is no way I'd do anything more than a routine oil change to it.

 

You want help? Take it to a Toyota dealer. A Prius service tech at least has a chance of reading the codes correctly, diagnosing the problem, and fixing it.

Sheesh.

 

I had the doom lights come on at 10:30 at night on my way home last night, December 25, 2004. My prius up til now has been fantastic, with no hints of this kind of a problem. In fact I have never had a car do this on me before. I was also expecting to leave on a trip today so all my plans are now cancelled and I guess I contact the dealer about this tomorrow morning. What a bummer!!!!!

I do appreciate all the posts on "Priuschat", the fact that I am not alone is informative.

 

Please let us know how it turns out.

 

We had the doom lights and the rapidly draining battery issue back in the summer when it was still nice and warm here in Michigan. It was trailered to the dealer where it started up just fine, thanks, with no sign of a problem whatsoever. The dealer reloaded the software, just to be sure. No problems until now, but we just haven't trusted it the way we did before.

Now we're having a "sleepy display" issue (started another post) where the display doesn't come on or act normal for the first few minutes of driving. We love our car, but this isn't helping our confidence in it.