I have a 2004 Prius with 75,000 miles so far. In the past couple of weeks I am getting a red triangle with exclamation point symbol with accompanying beep on start up. This disappears before the display screen is activated and does not come back on until the next start up. It is also intermittent and does not happen every time the power button is pressed. The owners manual describes the symbol and indicates it is activated by a wide range of problems and really means you should read the accompanying message on the display screen. Since the symbol disappears before the screen is activated, I cannot see any error message if there even was one. Since the first time it occurred was shortly after refueling, I am wondering if it could be as simple as a gas cap problem. Removing and replacing the gas cap seems to work at times and not others. May not be related at all. Anyone else encounter such a problem and what if anything did you learn might be causing it?
Are you still running with the original 12v battery? If so, it probably needs replacement. A failing 12v battery can give some strange alarms after startup.
Hi Southridge and welcome to PriusChat :welcome: I also have a 2004 and have not yet replaced the 12v battery. Though I only have a tad under 50,000 miles, I'm planning on replacing the 12v when I do my 50,000 mile service check. I am no technician but I think firepa might onto something. Especially considering that it's only at start-up as though perhaps it's trying to report a low voltage condition or something.
Thanks for the advice. I did check the 12v battery for loose connections or corrosion. Everything looked good but you are probably right about it being due for replacement.
For the fast and easy Prius 12V battery selftest procedure see jdenenberg's post under PriusOnline.com • View topic - how to put 12V battery in sleeping mode? The procedure for my 2004 was slightly different; see father down in that same thread. I also measured slightly different results when using a voltmeter at the under-hood charging point, so if the selftest gives you marginal results you might confirm it with a meter.
i have had my prius battery replaced under warranty at no cost. my advice if you are considering replacement, take the car to any auto service store that has the machine and have them do a load test on it and look at the print out. this will test each cell and give you a detailed report of the current condition of the battery. the cost of this test will be FREE and your time your toyota dealer can do it too, but prepare to scream at them and wave your arms to get them to do it deep discharging will harm the battery, i do not believe the prius 12 v battery is a deep cycle marine battery, if someone has a reference from the manufacturer that spefically states that it is a deep cycle battery, please post it measuring the voltage across the battery or in the mfd screen is not a reliable test of the condition of the battery. my battery tested over 12 volts, but leaving the car for 30 minutes listening to the radio seriously jeopardized the car starting and almost left me stranded several times. before purchasing a battery not only to do you want to know the current voltage of the battery, but you also want to know what the actual capacity of that battery is.
prius vehicles are very smart. eventhough warning indicator light goes off there may be fault codes stored in the memory of the vehicle's onboard computers. Have a dealer or prius certified repair shop perform a quick diagnostic of the vehicle(called health check with toyota diag equipments).
Indeed it is not a deep discharge battery, and therefore one should not leave the car in ACC for any length of time. If you want to listen to the radio for a half-hour, leave the car ON and in Park so that it can run the engine and keep the batteries charged as needed.
After getting the advice to check the battery, I took the car to Toyota for a battery check. They found the CCA to be <70 and recommended replacement. I did not know what the CCA should be for that battery but that figure is far below the rating of an ordinary 12V automotive battery. I let them replace the battery at a total cost of $173. Since then the malfunction light has not illuminated. I was a little surprised that the malfunction light was not accompanied by a message telling me specifically that the problem was with the battery performance. That makes this forum all the more valuable.
Funnily enough, my 2004 Prius (which has about 77,000 miles on it) just displayed the red triangle this past Saturday. I had taken it into the Toyota dealership for a standard tune-up: oil change, oil filter, air filter and spark plugs, etc. As I took it out of the parking lot and down the road, the red triangle came on, I lost acceleration power and the screen said "Problem" (duh). I was able to turn the car around, get to the stop light, and as I approached the garage, it lost acceleration again and I coasted into the garage. They lent me a loaner Prius (beautiful 2008 model, yummy) and told me today that it may have been an 'airflow' problem when they changed the filter. They want to check it out in the cold morning tomorrow and then they'll let me have it back. I want them to check the 12v battery now that I read the above posts as well. Here's my laundry list of issues for this car: 1. Recall of the steering shaft--replaced 2. Stalling in the middle of the Chicago skyline parkway (while driving through the city) and having a new inverter / computer installed to the tune of $5000 (under warranty). 3. Accident (no fault) that bent the front axle--both front and rear bumpers had to be replaced as well as all four tires. 4. Nav screen froze--needed to be replaced. My cost of $500. And now this current issue. Is it the 2004 models? Or just the stuff that goes along with a hybrid? Sigh, Victorria
Hi Victoria, I don't know what an "airflow" problem is, unless someone left a rag in the air cleaner housing, blocking the flow of air to the engine intake. I would have expected your car to be test-driven after the tune-up was performed. In any event, once you find out what the problem was (along with any DTC logged) please post, then we can say whether the issue is unique to 2004 Prius or not. Thanks!
Steering shaft and nav screen: 2004 problems. All better now. Bad inverter: bad luck. Accident: obviously not the car's fault. "Airflow" problem: the technician left an oil rag inside the engine. BTW, there is no need to change the spark plugs until 144,000 miles/12 years. You got sold too much stuff. Every dealer will do that if you say "gimme your X miles service package". What you should do is, take the Scheduled Maintenance Guide with you, show the correct page to the service writer, and say "do these items and nothing else".
"Airflow" problem was that there was dirt in the system that needed to be flushed out. Everything is working fine now.
